Counterculture
by Inspirationally Red
Summary: When Roderich Edelstein – musical prodigy, concert pianist, photographer and friend of the most annoying man on earth – is unwillingly dragged off to a heavy metal concert, he could never have imagined what followed. Modern AU, FinAus
1. Anacrusis

**Title: Counterculture **

**Genre: Romance **

**Rated: T**

**Disclaimer: Hetalia belongs to Hidekaz Himaruya **

**Summary: ****When Roderich Edelstein – musical prodigy, concert pianist, photographer and friend of the most annoying man on earth – is unwillingly dragged off to a heavy metal concert, he could never have imagined what followed. Modern AU, FinAus **

**COUNTERCULTURE**

**A SYMPHONIC METAL OPERA**

**CHAPTER ONE **

**ANACRUSIS **

Seven-thirty

The first fingers of dawn tentatively brushed the undersides of the clouds, casting flickering, illusory shadows. The branches of an enormous fig tree stood murmuring beneath a still-grey sky, the ornate old streetlamp beneath it flinging pale light onto the olive leaves.

The wind was gentle yet cold – he zipped up his jacket as he knelt down behind the camera. He adjusted the tripod, lowering it several inches to better capture the tableau before him. The streetlamp cast its light down onto the cold stone steps leading down to the river. The tree hung its sheltering boughs, casting a tapestry of alternately swaying grey and black shades against the cold stone. The quality of the image was perfect, the chiaroscuro of mottled light capturing the moment perfectly.

He couldn't give anything to a piece of scenery to show his appreciation, obviously, but he smiled as he packed up the tripod and moved on.

**ooOOoo**

Gilbert was not happy.

He could tell by the unhappy slump of his shoulders, the impatient tap of his battered Converse shoes against the pedals, the way he drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. The streetlight loomed from the asphalt behind the car like the tentacle of a vast monster preparing to grab it, illuminating the interior in a wash of gold, lightening his pale blonde hair to white and reddening his dark brown eyes.

"_There _you are. Seriously, where were you?"

Roderich heaved open the passenger door of the car, resting the tripod against the seat. The camera went in the space above the dashboard, rubber casing squeaking slightly against the roughness. "I was taking pictures," he answered as he slid onto the seat. A slim-fingered hand darted out to snatch a black marker and a dog-eared blank music sheet from the glove compartment. It was hard to fill in the stave neatly while the car was moving, but he did the best he could, hissing briefly under his breath in annoyance as the treble clef ended up facing the wrong way around.

Gilbert glanced at the sheet with narrowed eyes. "You're gonna work all the way there?"

Roderich barely glanced at him, humming a few bars of the imagined song as he let his perfect pitch and the marker do their jobs. Line after line was filled with the scrawled, slightly slanting musical notes, the vigorous rasp of pen against paper successfully deterring Gilbert from saying anything further.

Roderich knew Gilbert was worried about him, even though he would never admit it. That was the reason he had dragged him out tonight; showing up at his apartment at eight o'clock in the morning, Gilbert had threatened to call in Feliks if Roderich did not come out of his house for the first time in weeks and 'be social', as the self-proclaimed Prussian called it. If there was one thing Roderich couldn't stand it was the thought of the Polish cross-dresser dancing around his pristine mock-Tudor house, so he had relented. Gilbert had wanted to distract the brilliantly eccentric musician from his work, as did most of his friends. They all knew full-well what had happened last time the emotional Austrian had been locked up in his house for weeks on end with nothing but line after line of Mozart's Ode To Joy for company, and none of them had any desire to repeat the experience.

But it still rankled him. Not so much that Gilbert was taking him out, but…

Roderich glanced beside him at the German and, unable to contain himself any longer, burst out. "A heavy metal concert?!"

Gilbert grinned wickedly at him, quite an accomplishment for someone whose ruddy eyes never left the road. "You know you love it."

"Why?" Roderich demanded, abandoning his sheet music. "You know I'm a _classical_ composer…"

"Plenty of bands combine heavy metal with classical, it's not that hard. You might even get some _inspiration_."

Roderich doubted Gilbert had meant to look that dirty when he said it, but he still turned to stare out the window, sparing himself of any more lecherous gazes the German might think of throwing at him. Roderich had always known Rammstein was a bad influence.

They pulled up outside a dingy-looking warehouse. The amount of people milling around the entrance was a thin trickle – Gilbert was late for most things, but when it came to his beloved metal bands, he always had to get there an hour early if he could help it. Roderich cast an apprehensive glance through the car windows at the fans on the street – the people out there boasted more tattoos and piercings than he'd ever seen in his life, and blacker clothes than he would have thought humanly possible.

"Are we going to meet…?" He began as they got out, but was interrupted by a sudden shriek.

"Roderich! You came!"

Roderich only had time to turn halfway around before someone barrelled into him, enveloping him in a crushing bear hug. The figure revealed itself moments later when it released him and stepped back, revealing the face of…

Roderich gaped. "Erzsébet? Is that _you_?"

The Hungarian woman grinned. She had accessorized herself in more studs and spikes than the Austrian musician had ever seen in his life, and he doubted the thick black eyeliner did anything for her normally fair complexion. "Come on Roderich, you can't go in there looking like _that_!" she gestured at him.

Roderich looked down at his pale grey jacket and polished dark shoes, then back to his friend's leather ensemble. "I'm fine, thank you."

Erzsébet tutted. "Alright, but at least wear this." Before he had time to react, she had darted forward and clasped a black leather cuff around his left wrist. "That way you won't freak everyone out by looking like a policeman," she winked.

Roderich felt the weight of the cuff and felt insulted. "I'll have you know that this is a designer suit…"

"Hey, Erzsébet, weren't you meant to pick up Vasche?" Gilbert piped up from behind them. The self-proclaimed Prussian's voice was cordial, yet the dagger-like glare he shot Erzsébet when her back was turned made it clear he hadn't forgotten their long-standing grudge.

Erzsébet swore under her breath. "Damnit, you're right. I forgot. Come on, Gil."

"Wait, what about me?" Roderich demanded, beginning to panic. Several of the people milling around were beginning to shoot him suspicious looks, and he was prepared to bet that the spikes decorating their clothes weren't purely for ornamental use.

Erzsébet waved a hand dismissively, already striding off with the blonde German in tow. "There're still a few minutes until the concert starts, just wait by the car and you'll be fine."

Roderich's protests died in his throat when it became clear Erzsébet wasn't going to stop walking. He leaned against the side of the car, nervously tracked the fan's movements out of the corner of his eye, and tried to control the feeling of panic. Vasche's house was practically down the road – five minutes at the most, and he knew the uptight Swiss was punctual to his dying day. Until then, Roderich would wait by the car and try to avoid being beaten up by the scariest bunch of people he had ever witnessed. Roderich's count of the number of people with piercings rose to twenty-four, and he became convinced he had seen a tall, skinny man with 'BITE ME' shaved into the back of his head. Once or twice he even saw covert bottles of beer being passed around.

_Are you even allowed to drink before a concert?_ Roderich thought wildly. He swallowed. _Maybe the bouncers don't mind…_ He had never touched alcohol in his life, but the way people were staring at him, he thought he might have to. Didn't Gilbert have a bottle of wine stashed somewhere in the car…?

He was mentally debating this when somebody tapped him on the shoulder. "Sorry, do you have a light?"

Roderich spun around and nearly screamed. The man facing him now was everything he feared of heavy metal fans personified. His hair was long and blonde and looked like it had never been washed, falling down in a greasy sheet to a point roughly at his waist. His clothes were the standard for most of the people around him – black and leather, with enough spikes and chains to successfully sink several battleships, and his build was tall and muscular. Roderich felt intimidated just by standing two feet away.

"Have you got a lighter?" he repeated slowly, holding out his hand. Even as Roderich stared, the man smiled awkwardly. "I'm sorry my German isn't very good." He had an odd accent. It sounded vaguely Scandinavian; Swedish, maybe.

His eyes were a peculiar shade of violet-blue, and pale; pale enough to make the Austrian picture smoky windows, stained-glass; a church in the snow. Roderich tried not to stare as he felt those eyes skim momentarily down his body. A strange feeling was enveloping him from his head to his toes, a kind of hot prickling that made him wonder if his jacket was too tight. "Umm… no, sorry, I don't." Roderich answered eventually, distracted.

The man smiled, and for some reason, Roderich's heart seemed to skip a beat. "That's fine. I don't smoke anyway – it's for my friend back there." He jerked a thumb behind his shoulder.

Roderich didn't have the heart to tell him the black-leather clad masses looked all the same to him. "You speak very good German." Roderich said instead, trying to compliment him. The tall, muscular, strangely charming man had captured his interest, despite his best efforts, and Roderich felt his racing heart begin to calm. Perhaps these people weren't so bad after all. "You have an interesting accent… Are you from Sweden?"

The man paused. Those strangely coloured eyes blinked once. "No, I'm from Finland. My name's Timo. Timo Väinämöinen."

"Roderich Edelstein. I'm from Austria."

"Really?" Timo's fascinating eyes sparkled. "I've always wanted to go there. Whereabouts in Austria?"

"Vienna." Roderich answered.

"Aha! The home of Schubert!"

A metalhead who knew the classics? Roderich was instantly sold. "That's right." Feeling slightly more daring at the Finnish man's knowledge, he ventured. "I'm a classical composer myself."

"You don't say?" Timo's eyes raked over him once again, but with a fiercer, more interested intensity. That feeling swept over Roderich again in an abrupt wave.

"Y-yes." Roderich gasped. To distract himself, he blurted. "Where in Finland are you from? What do you do?" Was this moving too fast? Roderich had no idea. They seemed to have abandoned the point of being strangers several sentences back, but Roderich had no idea where they were now.

Timo paused. "I'm from Kitee. Have you…" he broke off at the unexpected arrival of Gilbert and Erzsébet, who were both determinedly dragging a disgruntled blonde Swiss behind them by each arm.

"Hey, Roderich!" Gilbert ruffled his hair. Erzsébet had released Vasche and was muttering away to him in rapid Swiss-German, seemingly unaware of Timo, who was staring at them all with an expression of complete bemusement.

"Are these your friends, Roderich?" he asked politely. Gilbert, Erzsébet and Vasche's heads instantly spun around to the tall, leather-clad Finn.

Vasche's jaw dropped, completely diverted for the time since he'd arrived. "Who the hell are _you_?"

"I'm Timo Väinämöinen," Timo introduced himself, seemingly unperturbed by the Swiss man's foul mouth. He smiled, violet eyes darting back to skim Roderich's face again. "Me and Roderich were just talking, weren't we?"

Erzsébet's head spun back to Roderich. "Is this true?" She sounded rather like a policewoman demanding evidence.

Roderich felt oddly defensive; Vasche's green eyes were burning an uncomfortable hole in the side of his head, neatly countering Timo's amused violet gaze. "Yes. He was telling me about where he was from."

"You're Finnish, right?" Gilbert's ruddy eyes were wide as he interrogated the tall man.

Timo's teeth flashed white in a grin. "Yes, I'm from Kitee."

Gilbert's jaw dropped; he looked astounded. "You have got to be kidding me."

Timo looked as though he was holding back laughter. "No, I'm not."

"That's where Nightwish are from!" Gilbert looked ready to pounce upon him. "Have you met them? Do you live near them?"

"Slow down!"

Roderich leaned over to where Erzsébet and Vasche were standing in nonplussed silence, and whispered. "I have no idea what's going on."

"Then don't ask me," Vasche whispered back.

"How could you guys not know Nightwish?" Gilbert rounded on them. He looked slightly maniacal; Timo's expression had long crossed into wary bewilderment at his barrage of questions.

Growing heartily tired of Gilbert constantly reiterating himself, Roderich shot back. "Who are they, then?"

"Only the best symphonic metal band of all time!" Gilbert's expression was bordering on rapture, and fervour Roderich normally only associated with particularly fanatical religions.

Timo raised one hand, still looking amused. "Sonata Arctica are still pretty good." He checked his watch and addressed Roderich, sounding almost sheepish. "I have got to go." He smiled at him. "Will I see you again?"

Erzsébet froze like a hunting dog scenting a rabbit, her head whipping around to the Austrian so fast it made an audible whooshing noise. Her brown eyes were shining, and Roderich was prepared to bet she was mentally egging him on. _Agree, _her eyes seemed to scream.

Looking slightly askance at his friend, Roderich glanced uncertainly back at Timo. "Um… maybe."

Timo smiled and procured an iPhone from his pocket. "Here, I'll give you my number."

Roderich took out his phone warily, feeling slightly self-conscious of the battered little Nokia, and keyed in the phone number while the Finnish man read it aloud. "Umm… okay…" A billion alarm bells were going off in his mind. Firstly, who was this man? He knew his name was Timo, he was from Finland, and he liked heavy metal, but that was all. He could be a molester, for all Roderich knew. Yet there was just something about this man – maybe the way his violet eyes flashed so winningly, maybe the easiness with which he spoke, his friendliness – that fascinated him.

"…eight-seven-five-six," Timo finished.

Roderich's fingers itched. "Okay." Realizing the Finnish man was waiting, he said. "Mine is…"

_His Muse was striking, _as Gilbert would say. Roderich had never felt more in need of sitting down at a piano in his life. He already had the beginning of a tune – the first three bars a poignant reflection of snowy days, burning candles, friendliness, and the colour violet. Maybe he could change the time signature to 2/4 instead of 4/4, and make it a C#... or maybe a B flat would be better, to create a more whimsical mood…

Timo smiled at him, effectively catapulting him from his thoughts and shooting him into the real world. "Great. I'll call you, okay?"

Roderich blinked, feeling slightly dazed. "Umm…" he was acutely conscious of his friends staring at him. "Okay. Sure."

Timo smiled and walked away, weaving expertly in between the crowd with long strides.

Gilbert's head whipped around to Roderich. "Have you just been picked up?"

Erzsébet joined in, a vindictive, slightly evil grin spreading over her face. "Roderich! I didn't know you had a fetish for leather." Unlike most, Erzsébet was almost dangerously supportive of her Austrian friend's homosexuality, and took every opportunity to make inappropriate jokes about it.

Vasche took advantage of Roderich's momentary lapse in concentration to hit his Hungarian friend on the arm. "That's _disgusting_, Erzsébet. You should be ashamed." Then he ruined it all by adding thoughtfully. "But yes, it did look like he was getting picked up."

"What?" Roderich felt confused. And slightly dizzy. "What do you mean? Who's picking who?" a thought occurred to him, and he added. "And what are they picking? Flowers?"

Erszébet's laughter sounded like the tinkling of a bell. "Oh Roderich, you're hopeless."

Gilbert checked his watch, Roderich's romantic status obviously being the last thing on his mind. "Guys, the concert's about to start." There was an undeniable edge of tension in his voice.

Vasche slumped where he stood, Roderich's meeting forgotten. "God, kill me now." Although he heartily disliked the Swiss man, Roderich couldn't help feeling the same, all thoughts of the charismatic Finnish stranger draining from his head in a long trickle.

"Guys, come on!" Gilbert was bouncing where he stood, his grin wide, ruddy eyes sparkling with barely supressed glee. "You don't know how long I've been saving up to go to this concert; this is the start of Nightwish's world tour to promote their new movie!"

"I thought the whole point of being in a metal band was to stand around looking Satanic and scream." Vasche chipped in dryly.

Gilbert's eyes narrowed as he rounded on him; he looked willing to happily choke the man. "Say that again."

"Door's opening, guys." With her unerring ability to sense the beginning of a row, Erzsébet grabbed hold of Gilbert and Vasche's collars and promptly dragged them away to where a small queue was forming. Roderich followed with a feeling of doom settling in his stomach, lathering along with a hearty wish that he could disappear from here. He had left his blank sheet music in the car; Roderich's fingers itched to start noting down the beginning of the song _now_, before the memory of those violet eyes faded from his head.

The queue at the door of the warehouse was cramped and sweaty; Roderich gingerly inched backwards away from a man who looked like he could wrestle an elephant and come away with a hearty grin. In doing so, he bumped into Gilbert.

"Sorry," he muttered.

Gilbert clapped him on the shoulder with enough force to make him wince. "Lighten up, Roderich, this'll be fun!"

Roderich smiled weakly. "I-I'm sure it will."

"Well, I hate it." Vasche's complaint was petulant, leaf-green eyes glaring at the self-proclaimed Prussian. "I only came because you had four tickets and couldn't find a fourth person. I don't even know who it is we're seeing!"

"Neither do I," Roderich added, feeling that, if he was forced to endure a heavy metal concert, the least he could do was endeavour to find out the name of the band.

Gilbert beamed with almost indecent enthusiasm. "I just told you, it's Nightwish! Best symphonic metal band in the world!"

"You realize I hate metal, don't you?" Vasche inquired, seemingly determined to do whatever he could to ruin the night.

"Oh, get over yourself," Gilbert flapped a hand at him. "Seriously, between you liking folk and Roderich with his Mozart, you guys must have no idea of what's awesome!"

"I like Adrian von Ziegler," Vasche muttered as the queue of people inched forward. The Swiss man raked a hand through his blonde hair, ruining the careful comb-over. "He does all sorts of stuff…"

Gilbert remained adamant. "He also isn't signed with a record label."

"Record labels don't matter, you can get by just fine without one…"

"Can't talk now, tickets!" Erzsébet sang. For a second Roderich didn't know what the Hungarian woman was talking about – maybe the new fashion sense had gone to her head – but then he realized they had come to the front of the queue and a guard was requesting their tickets.

Gilbert frantically searched his pockets. "Damnit, I know I put them here somewhere…" from his pockets he drew an assortment of objects – a pair of tangled earphones, three slightly fuzzy breath mints, a pair of keys and two keycharms – one in the shape of a German flag, the other a pint of beer – before he yanked out his black leather wallet and flipped it open. "Here they are!"

"More's the pity," Vasche muttered. He winced as Erzsébet elbowed him in the ribs.

The interior of the warehouse was dimly lit and stank of sweat. Roderich's eyes widened as he cast his gaze around the massive hall, searching in vain for somebody who didn't look as though they were emulating KISS. Everybody in the hall seemed to have never heard of personal space – everybody was jammed up against each other, some in positions Roderich felt sure weren't for public display.

Erzsébet was shouting something over the roar of conversation – it took Roderich several seconds to work out the words and even then her sentence made no sense. It was only when Erzsébet ducked her head down to his ear level that he was able to hear "Where are we sitting?"

Gilbert checked the tickets, and looked a breath short of cheering aloud. "At the front of the moshpit!"

Roderich's knees buckled; he didn't even mind Vasche flinging an arm around his shoulders to haul him upright. "A_ moshpit_?"

Gilbert grinned and ruffled his hair. "Try not to faint on us, won't you, Beethoven?" He started for the front of the crowd, but Roderich refused to move.

"I'm not going into a moshpit." He said with as much firmness as he could muster.

Erzsébet and Gilbert both grabbed hold of his arms. "Come on, Roderich!" they chorused, with almost eerie synchronism, and began dragging the protesting Austrian musician to the front of the pit.

"Vasche! Vasche, help me!"

"Are you kidding?" Vasche was laughing so hard he was almost doubled over in mirth. "If I'd known the night would involve you being manhandled, I would have come earlier!"

Erzsébet released Roderich's arm once they had reached their allocated positions in the moshpit and whirled to face the Swiss man, looking delighted. "Vasche, my dear, you're coming out!"

"What?" Roderich wished he had a camera; the look on Vasche's face once he realized what he had said could be taken for homosexual innuendo was something money simply could not buy. "No! I'm not ga-"

"Yes, you are, you've had a crush on Roderich for years." Erzsébet said sweetly, and Vasche's expression turned to one of pure horror.

Roderich choked. He felt rather winded, as though somebody had slapped him around the face so fast he hadn't had the time to comprehend what had happened. "_What?"_

Vasche coughed into a fist. He looked embarrassed, and the tips of his ears were reddening – Erzsébet simply looked proud, with the grin of a mother who had witnessed the marriage of her child. "I… I'm…"

"What?" Roderich felt odd. "Are you saying you've…"

"No, Erzsébet's lying, it's me who's had the crush." Gilbert chipped in. Roderich whirled around with wide eyes, about to interrogate him too, when he saw that Gilbert was grinning the grin he normally only wore when participating in a particularly hilarious joke.

Oh. _Oh. _

Then suddenly all of Roderich's friends were bursting out laughing and Roderich was left grinning, feeling suddenly very small, and remarkably foolish.

"Oh Roderich, you're so easy to mess with." Erzsébet was about to put her arm around the gullible musician's shoulders, when all the lights in the warehouse went out.

Just when Roderich was about to panic about the possibility of a blackout, a single white spotlight beamed down onto the stage, illuminating the heavily scuffed wooden boards in a swathe of harsh light. The light reflected off the boards, catching in the lenses of his glasses and nearly blinding him.

"Welcome, everybody." A deep, masculine voice purred, and several people in the crowd screamed. Whether from fear or joy, Roderich couldn't tell; his brain seemed to have frozen mid-procession, rendering any and all attempts to function a dismal failure.

"We are the Nordic Five," the voice continued. The harsh light was ebbing slightly now, Roderich could distantly make out the vague silhouette of a figure standing tall in the centre of the stage.

Beside him, Gilbert was frozen; he looked as though he was about to jump onto the stage then and there, and his expression was one of pure disbelief. Erzsébet leaned over to Roderich and whispered. "That's the feature band."

"Where the hell is Nightwish?" Gilbert hissed back.

Roderich opened his mouth, about to reply, when the dim spotlight strengthened. A sudden swathe of bright light illuminated the whole stage, glinting off the bodies of guitars, the structure of the drums, and the spiked accessories the whole band sported.

And he was standing there.

Timo Väinämöinen was standing in the middle of the stage. His torso was twisted sideways, each foot spread far apart, and his head flung back. The lights illuminated his face, with the black painted lips and thick eye makeup, and glinted off the spiked armbands and tight black leather clothes. A black-nailed hand was clenched around the head of the microphone, rings burnished silver in the glow. Everything about this pose suggested a snapshot of ecstatic torment, a frenzied gyration suspended for one moment in time, so that everybody could see the vulnerability in the muscular frame.

Roderich's eyes sped along the length of that body in shocked silence, the memory of their conversation suddenly fresh in his mind. Erzsébet, Gilbert and Vasche had all turned to gape at him, their expressions completely astonished.

Roderich shared the feeling.

The drummer – a short, blonde man dressed in what looked suspiciously like a leather corset and gloves – came to life. The drums kicked in, bursting over the speakers in a sudden wash of purposeful beats, and Timo's eyes flashed open. His irises were a beautiful flash of pure violet, and he opened his mouth and screamed. The scream soared over the pounding of the drums, rising and falling in an ululation so loud and so eerie it sent a long shiver down Roderich's spine. It was like the prickling of a dozen icicles across his skin, the twisting of a thousand knives directly into Roderich's heart, Timo's voice sending icy chills coursing down the length of his body.

Roderich didn't need to ask if his friends were feeling the same; he could see their reaction just by their expressions. Gilbert's mouth had fallen open; Erzsébet and Vasche were looked at each other in amazement.

Timo's long, heartrending scream trailed off into a long, deadly growl as his head whipped forward, glaring at the crowd through his black-ringed eyes, violet orbs lancing at the faces of the many people crammed together in the mosh. It was an expression so primal, so raw, and so utterly unlike anything Roderich had previously witnessed in their short conversation, it made him feel almost scared.

Timo's torso was tightly bound in the straps of a white straitjacket, and it could not have been any clearer to Roderich that he was the madman.

Then the lead guitarist started, the frenzied thrashing of his wicked-looking, axe-shaped guitar stabbing at the crowd in a flurry of notes so fast and so visceral Roderich gasped. The guitarist's hands ran up and down the strings so fast his fingers were a black-tipped white blur, spiky blonde hair falling into his eyes as he grinned a dark blue grin.

He was the punk.

The guitar trailed off and the bass guitar took its place. The notes were slower and more purposeful than the turmoil of the lead guitar, yet none the less heart-rending. The bass guitarist cradled his guitar close to him like a mother holding her child, radiance suffusing his face as he lovingly caressed the strings.

He was the benevolent.

There was a keyboard up the back that Roderich hadn't noticed before; another blonde man was sitting at it. The man seemed the most sensibly dressed out of all his fellow band members; the spotlights flashed off his plain square glasses as he lifted his fingers to the keys and began to play. Both guitars soared to meet it; the sheer elation and beauty of the melody made Roderich gasp again.

He was the composer.

Then Timo opened his mouth and began to sing, and everything that had occurred before then instantly fled Roderich's mind.

Timo's voice was… _beautiful_. There was no other word Roderich could use to describe it. The melody was simple yet gorgeous – a heart-rending cadence that hugged at his heart no matter how loudly the guitars roared or how frenziedly the corset-wearing drummer assaulted the drums. The song built in volume, soaring over the speakers in a triumphant crescendo, and in that moment Roderich felt as though he was standing in the middle of a battlefield, suffused by all the triumph and the medieval, folk-tale awe that had attracted him so much to the Lord of The Rings.

Vasche and Gilbert were both gaping up at the stage, while Erzsébet was laughing.

"This is excellent!" she cheered. Her brown eyes were shining almost as brightly as her grin. "I approve!"

The keyboards' glittering notes rose in the most delicate, triumphant crescendo Roderich had ever heard – it set the pianist's fingers alight with tingling and constricted his heart with excitement. The bass and drums joined in harmony, melding to form a low, thudding beat, while the guitar screamed a song of love and loss, the plaintive riff and the sheer, beautiful power of Timo's voice soaring up and up and up.

Everybody was going ballistic, jumping up and down. Roderich felt himself being tossed mercilessly up and down, side to side, born by the furious, frenetic movements of the mosh, the music soaring, so loud it could possibly break his ears. Strobe lights flashed hot pink, blue, green, yellow, purple, white, and his heart raced in time to the wheedling of the guitar and the clash of the drums. Roderich's heart was speeding, every nerve charged in breathless excitement, tingles scattering up and down his skin that had nothing to do with the close proximity of the people in the mosh. The band was tall and triumphant, thrashing at the head of the crowd, snarling and spitting, driving them onwards as the crowd surged like a living tidal wave, bodies crammed together, a single living, breathing entity amped up on the Nordic Five. And drawing them onwards was the irrevocable magnetism of Timo Väinämöinen, his charisma transformed into something harder, rawer, almost visceral. As he stood on the stage, violet eyes searing through the crowd, he radiated the fearsome, otherworldly air of a sorcerer, mouth open, singing.

"THIS IS AMAZING!" Gilbert screamed over the roar of the crowd. Even Vasche, wide-eyed and sweaty, was nodding, head blurring up and down in a vigorous series of bobs, a grin stretching the contours of his face.

The roar that resounded as the Nordic Five brought the song to a crashing end was nearly as loud as the music had been. Throughout the crowd, Roderich could see questioning gazes being flashed around, heavily pierced faces lifting in surprise one after the other, almost like a chain reaction. None of the people in the hall had any idea who this band was, but after a song like that, they were willing to suspend all doubts.

Roderich himself was just trying to calm his heart rate before the organ gave up on him entirely.

"Okay, we're going to finish up with one last song now," Timo's accented voice came over the speakers and Roderich's heart wrenched at the sound, so deep, so fierce, so intense. Beside him Gilbert was grinning an almost soppy grin, while Erzsébet and Vasche laughed and cheered along with the crowd.

"Just a little number one might know, called Lacrimosa." Timo said casually. Every eye in the venue followed him as he wandered around the stage, almost absent-mindedly dragging the microphone stand behind him.

Roderich's heart thudded in his ears as shock doused him like icy water. Lacrimosa?

Lacrimosa was a traditional religious requiem that Mozart had expanded upon. When he and Roderich had spoken, Timo had made it clear he not only knew but enjoyed the classics. What if…

Then the first few notes of the song started, and Roderich's doubts were erased.

"This is incredible," he whispered, as the guitars kicked in and the crowd roared. Hearing his voice, Erzsébet, Vasche and Gilbert turned towards him. Unwittingly, strangely, Roderich felt his eyes begin to prickle with tears. "This is unbelievable."

Erzsébet put an arm around him. Gilbert laughed and ruffled his hair. A small grin wormed its way onto Vasche's face.

The song finished and Roderich swayed. The previous tears had dissipated now, leaving him feeling overwhelmed. He was jumpy and shaky, but he was also happy. So, so happy, so blindly ecstatic it felt as though his heart was about to burst from the strain of containing so much emotion. Because what he had just witnessed – the metal band they had all heard – had been so raw, so ecstasy-inducing Roderich berated himself for not coming across the genre sooner.

The Nordic Five trooped off the stage to tumultuous applause – the noise sounded so peculiar to Roderich after the frenzy of the two songs he had to touch his ears to ascertain they hadn't been damaged. The abrupt lack of any loud sound seemed to hang in his eardrums.

"Well, that was awesome," Gilbert said in a hushed voice.

"I am so getting their merch." Erzsébet agreed. Then her eyes widened and she rounded on Roderich. "Roderich, darling, what did you think?"

"It was good." Roderich managed. His heart was still thudding; he wondered vaguely if it would ever calm down.

"Halleluiah! He likes metal!" Gilbert flung his arms around the Austrian's neck, coming in danger of choking him.

As Roderich disentangled himself from the German's arms, he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Fishing it out, he squinted at the dimly-lit screen and his heart leapt. It was a text from Timo.

**What do you think? Good enough for Mozart? :P **

Smiling, Roderich texted back.


	2. Unfinished Melodies

**COUNTERCULTURE**

**A SYMPHONIC METAL OPERA**

**CHAPTER TWO **

**UNFINISHED MELODIES**

* * *

"So, are you thinking about seeing him again?" Erzsébet asked.

Gilbert's head snapped up. "You have to." Without giving Roderich a chance to respond he flung his arms out wide, coming in danger of clipping Vasche across the skull. "I mean, come on, after a performance like that…"

"Oi, Gil!" came the Swiss man's cranky reply as his green eyes squinted through the darkened windshield. "I'm trying to drive here!"

"He sent me a text…" Roderich murmured from the back seat, tilting his phone to better see the miniature letters that adorned it. "But I don't know if I should reply or not…"

"Are you mad?" Gilbert cried. Vasche's breath hissed through his teeth as Gilbert unknowingly swung an arm above his head. "He's in a metal band! He knows Nightwish! If you must see him, see him for me, I want to get free tickets to their concerts!"

"Don't reply, Roderich," came Erzsébet's unfailingly calm voice from the seat next to Roderich. "Everybody knows you shouldn't trust a rockstar with a relationship."

Gilbert looked as though he had just choked. "Are you out of your _mind?_"

"GILBERT, I'M DRIVING!" Vasche roared over the top of them all.

It was four o'clock in the morning, and they were driving back to Roderich's expansive mock-Tudor mansion to spend the rest of the night in deep sleep or, in Erzsébet and Gilbert's case, to watch a marathon of horror movies intense enough to make the director of the Exorcist gasp. Even several hours later, the calm of the fresh night air and the steady rumble of the tyres against the road did nothing to calm the remnants of Roderich's post-concert buzz. His music sheet was now a good third of the way completed, and the recalcitrant tingle in the tips of his fingers had finally abated.

"What're you working on?" Erzsébet asked, craning her neck to catch a glimpse of the stark black music stave. Gilbert and Vasche were bickering in the front seats about road safety, the lights from the passing streetlamps spilling over the car in a wash of light.

Roderich smiled. "A new song."

Erzsébet stared at it in silence, brow knotting. After a moment, she shrugged and sat back. "Might as well be hieroglyphics for all I know." She grinned deviously at him. "Inspired?"

"Lacrimosa was excellent," said Roderich, thinking back. "What was your favourite song?"

"I loved The Crow, The Owl, And The Dove," Erzsébet answered with a small, rapturous sigh Roderich normally only associated with the religious. "The lead singer's voice was so beautiful."

Gilbert made a spitting noise. "Excuse me? The Crow, The Owl, And The Dove? Clearly Scaretale was the awesomest."

"Awesomest isn't a word," said Vasche, tight-lipped as he clenched the steering wheel. His eyes were fixed stonily on the road; he seemed to have reached the conclusion that the self-proclaimed Prussian was nothing short of a complete idiot, and vowed to contradict everything he said. Roderich liked him immediately.

They drove in silence for several minutes, but that suited Roderich just fine as he struggled to fill in the rest of the stave. He didn't know what to do – he'd already included several transversals and a crescendo in the last bar, how could he go on?

If there was anything he hated, it was an unfinished melody.

He was roused from his concentration by Gilbert's piercing whistle – the German couldn't hold a tune to save his life – and he looked up just in time to see the vast white structure of his house swing in to view, pale and ghostly through the darkened windshield.

"Oh, I love your house," Erzsébet sighed.

Roderich's house was vast and white – a gift from his patron, a wealthy, charismatic Italian man named Romulus Vargas, who seemed to have his grip on every industry imaginable, from science to music. Built with a soaring, terracotta-shingled roof that angled out to form sharply pitched eaves, the stunning piece of architecture only further strengthened Roderich's love of Tudor design.

Prior to becoming an independent composer, Roderich had been living mainly with Gilbert in a cramped, one-room apartment while Roderich struggled to find a job and Gilbert struggled just to survive in life. Gilbert's brother Ludwig had already soared from the Beilschmidt nest and secured a job as a high-earning doctor, a profession that, when Roderich had asked, Gilbert had passed off as being 'not awesome in the least', and persisted in trying to get a job as a bomb technician despite having no scientific training whatsoever. Roderich had taken several odd jobs throughout the years – a supermarket cashier here, a waiter there. All the jobs had ended with him getting fired for his eccentricities, episodes that Roderich absolutely did not want to recall. He had fulfilled his hobby by posting his songs on YouTube, until, one day, who should come across several of his songs but Romulus Vargas.

And the rest, as they say, was history.

They pulled up into the driveway with a crunch of wheels against gravel. Roderich unbuckled his seatbelt and let the heavy metal buckle slide back against the seat. The slash of tough fabric against his hand made him wince.

Erzsébet was still chattering away even as he unlocked the door. "God, I love your house, can I stay here? I'll pay rent," she looked pleadingly at him.

Roderich paused halfway across the threshold. "Er…" It occurred to him he couldn't tell whether his Hungarian friend was being serious or not; he looked to Vasche and Gilbert for assistance. "Well…" He quailed at the thought. Erzsébet, with her girlish chatter and messy, slovenly ways, in _his _house? He'd sooner die by falling drumkit.

Erzsébet saw his expression and laughed, pushing past him into the hallway. "Don't worry about it. Oh, wow."

Roderich winced. The richly carpeted hallway led into the combined kitchen and living room, with several bedrooms on each side. Plates he had been meaning to wash before Gilbert had dragged him off the concert rose in a stack next to the sink, and a loaf of bread sprawled across the sticky counter next to an unlidded jar of jam.

Gilbert let out a cheer. "Alright! Food!" With that, he charged over to the kitchen and began flinging open the fridge and drawers without ceremony. Cutlery, groceries and biscuit tins flew.

"Help yourself, why don't you," Roderich said acidly, ducking a flying plastic glass.

"Cheers, Roderich," Gilbert said without looking up, oblivious to the Austrian's sarcasm. He looked up, frustration rippling across his face. A bundle of cutlery fell from his grasp onto the white tiles, nearly giving Roderich a heart attack. "Okay, where are the _awesome _foods?"

While Roderich lectured Gilbert on the necessity of looking after knives and forks, Vasche had flung himself down onto one of the brown leather sofas in front of the flat-screen LCD TV. Roderich watched television only sparingly, preferring instead to spend hours at a time upstairs in the room Romulus had converted into a miniature recording studio for his benefit. The TV crackled for approximately three minutes while Vasche flipped through the channels, eventually settling for what looked like a soap opera in what Roderich presumed to be Swiss-German – he couldn't understand a word.

"Oh, just make yourself at home, why don't you!" Roderich dashed for the lounge, and the music sheets left strewn from one end of the polished wood coffee table to the other. "Hey, don't look at them!" Roderich's hand flashed out as Erzsébet studied one of the sheets, snatching it from her and bundling the sheets protectively to his chest. "They're private."

Erzsébet shrugged. "Can't read music anyway." She slid onto the couch and flung an arm around Vasche's shoulders, who promptly flushed red. "Vasche, darling, what are you watching?"

"Leben auf Kredit," Vasche muttered, blushing.

"Erzsébet, have you got the DVDs we'll be watching?" Gilbert blared from the kitchen, where he was in the process of working through a towering sandwich stuffed with every kind of condiment imaginable. Roderich dreaded the state his kitchen would be in when his friends left.

Erzsébet leapt to her feet. "Damnit, they're in the car. Roderich, darling, could you…"

"Here." Roderich tossed the car keys at her, feeling in no mood to move. "Don't mess them up."

"How can you mess up keys?" Erzsébet's remark drifted out behind her as she walked out into the hallway.

Roderich closed his eyes briefly, and tried counting backwards from ten. It didn't work. He opened his eyes and, a thought occurring to him, walked over to the answerphone and hit play.

The first message was from Gilbert with details about the concert; which was, as Gilbert commented in-between bites of sandwich, 'so surreal'. The next was from Romulus Vargas.

"Ciao, Roderich," the Italian's voice purred velvet even through the machine, causing everyone in the room to stop momentarily in their activities. Gilbert mouthed 'Creepy' to Vasche, whom Roderich was abashed to see nod. "I notice you haven't been producing any new material in quite some time… might you be lacking _inspiration_?" Roderich could almost picture Romulus's sly, sharp-toothed smile. "Come over to my office tomorrow at nine. Ciao." _Click_.

"Dear God, he's creepy," Vasche whispered, staring at the answerphone in fascinated horror as if he expected the suave Italian to come bursting out of the tinted metal shell.

Roderich turned away. "He's not that bad. It's just his manner."

"I pity you, man." Gilbert sympathetically patted Roderich's shoulder as he passed on the way to the couch. "Move over, Vasche, I've got a plateful of…"

"I've got them!" Erzsébet came bounding back into the living area with a beaming smile and an armful of DVDs Roderich doubted would do anything to ensure a restful sleep.

"Oh God, you're not thinking of pulling an all-nighter, are you?" Vasche groaned, paying no attention to how Gilbert was practically pummelling him to get him out of the way.

"We have Wolf Creek, what more could you want?" Erzsébet beamed.

"It's four o'clock at night already!"

Roderich turned away, and hunched his shoulders. "I hate horror movies." He muttered.

"Here, here." Vasche jumped up, looking warily over at where Gilbert and Erzsébet were crouched by the DVD player bickering over which movie to watch first. "Can we go upstairs?" This earned him a jubilant cat-call from Erzsébet and a wolf-whistle from Gilbert. The Swiss man rolled his eyes. "Oh for God's sake."

"Sure, I'll show you where you'll be sleeping." Roderich walked over to the stairwell. "Oh, shut up!" he fired over his shoulder as Erzsébet and Gilbert fell about laughing again.

They were halfway up the first flight of stairs, when Vasche paused. "Oh yeah, sorry, but do you have a phone I could use? I need to call my sister and let her know I'm okay…"

"Yeah, there's a phone in the guest room, you can use that one." Roderich said over his shoulder.

The guest room Vasche was staying in for the night was a bright, suffocating white – white walls, white furniture, white carpet. A white lampshade sat on a white bedside table next to a white clock radio. Plump white pillows, a white blanket and white uncluttered surfaces gleamed in their whiteness. At the window, stark white curtains sealed out an intrusive view of the garden.

"All that's missing are padded walls and a straitjacket," Vasche sniffed from the doorway.

Roderich twitched. It was four o'clock in the morning, and he could feel a low ache starting to build behind his right eye. "If you don't like it, you can always sleep on the couch. The phone's over there." He pointed, then whirled out.

Out in the corridor, Roderich leant back against the wall and breathed out slowly, steeling himself for the moment when he would have to re-join what was sounding like somebody getting murdered downstairs. After a minute of listening to Vasche gabble away to his sister over the phone in Swiss-German, Roderich breathed in and headed downstairs.

Halfway down the stairs, he was nearly thrown backwards by a hurtling black-leather-clad figure. "Roderich! Your phone's been blowing up!"

Roderich yelped. "What?" He felt his heartbeat rise. Not his phone! Not his brand new iPhone 5S! It was his only way of contacting Romulus; he'd gotten it for him! "How? How did it blow up?"

Erzsébet stared at him for a few moments, uncomprehending, before laughing and tugging him downstairs by the arm. "No, no, I mean, you've got a message!"

Roderich felt himself begin to calm, and headed over to where he'd left his phone lying on the coffee table. "Really? Who from?" As he picked it up, he saw, and felt his heart clench in an odd combination of hope and fear.

It was Timo.

**What did you think, Schubert? :P **

"You've got to reply, man," Gilbert said, making it sound as if it were the simplest thing in the world.

But Erzsébet was shaking her head, wedged next to Gilbert with a large bag of popcorn she'd somehow miraculously produced out of the cupboard. "Don't do it, Roderich. Never trust a rockstar with a relationship."

Her constant badgering was beginning to annoy Roderich. "For God's sake, Erzsébet, it's not a relationship!"

Erzsébet scoffed. "Sure, it isn't."

"I'm serious!" Roderich protested. Inwardly, he was aware he was sounding like a small, petulant child, but he didn't care. Before he knew quite what he was doing, his fingers had aligned themselves to the surface of the phone and he was typing.

**Had a few wrong notes at the end, I noticed. **

Erzsébet made a disapproving noise, but Gilbert shushed her. The white-blond German was leaning forward in his seat, ruddy eyes shining. "This is awesome, you guys could collaborate! You'd be able to go to all their concerts… take me along!"

Roderich rolled his eyes. He should have known Gilbert couldn't resist following up with some sort of demand. "I told you, I'm not…"

A ding from an incoming text message cut him off, and all heads whipped in the direction of the phone. On the TV screen, the woman screamed as she was brutally sliced apart, her howls cut off as Gilbert grabbed the remote and muted the TV.

**I'm just the vocalist, blame the bassist. :P **

Feeling slightly vindictive at Erzsébet's growing scowl, Roderich typed back.

**Sounds like a good name for a song, doesn't it? Blame The Bassist. **

**Haha! You're right. **

Just when Roderich was mentally debating what to say next, Timo sent him another text, and this one made his heart leap to his throat.

**Hey, we're leaving early tomorrow morning for a show in Berlin, but I was wondering if we could maybe meet before then? Say, at nine o'clock? Is that okay? **

"Ohmigod, you have to go!" Gilbert shrieked, sounding for all the word like Erzsébet when confronted with the latest copy of a book series.

Erzsébet raised both hands to intervene. "Hold on, Roderich, aren't you supposed to meet Mr Vargas tomorrow at nine?"

Vasche came hurrying down the stairs. "Roderich, I've…" he stopped, eyes widening as he beheld the scene in the living room – a gory tableau frozen on the TV screen, Roderich standing in the middle of the room holding his phone like it was a sacred object, and Erzsébet and Gilbert leaning forward on the couch. "What's going on?"

Gilbert jumped up. "Roderich got a message from Timo!"

"Who?" Vasche blinked as Gilbert rounded on him, looking ready to throttle the man. Recognition flooded his eyes. "Wait, the Finnish guy? What does he want?"

"He wants to meet him!" Gilbert squealed. It was the first time Roderich had seen the self-proclaimed Prussian look so excited.

Vasche still looked confused. "What? Who wants to meet who?"

Erzsébet sighed. "Oh my God, Vasche…"

While the Hungarian filled him in, Roderich allowed his attention to wander back to the phone, feeling torn between his commitment to Romulus, and his interest in Timo. True, he _had _been lacking inspiration lately, but Timo was only going to be in the neighbourhood for a short while…

Another text announced its arrival with a jaunty ping. **I've heard there's a good Chinese restaurant nearby, the Jade Dragon. We could go there, if you like :) But if you can't make it, that's fine. **

Roderich melted. God, Timo Väinämöinen had to have read his mind – how else would he have known Roderich loved Chinese food? Spurred on by the promise of delicious food, he typed back eagerly.

**How do you know I love Chinese food?! :) I'll be there at nine. **

Several seconds ticked by, until…

**OK, great :) See you there. **

The frantic tapping had drawn Erzsébet's eye faster than a thief spotting a diamond. Her eyes narrowed. "You're going to meet him, aren't you?"

"Yes!" Gilbert cheered and jumped up, inadvertently upending the bowl of popcorn all over the couch. "Wait..." he stopped and narrowed his eyes at Roderich, paying no attention to Erzsébet frantically picking up stray kernels of popcorn behind him. "Is this Romulus or the Finnish guy we're talking about?"

Roderich slipped his phone back into his pocket, smiling slightly. "The Finnish guy," he answered.

Gilbert punched the air triumphantly. "Alright!"

Roderich smiled.

* * *

Notes:

Seemed to end a bit abruptly, didn't it? :) I've been a bit busy lately, what with homework and studying for exams, so the next chapter will probably take a while to post.

Thank you so much to everybody who has taken the time to review! *hugs* Let me personally tell you all you are wonderful, wonderful people! *hands out cookies*


	3. The Name Game

**COUNTERCULTURE**

**A SYMPHONIC METAL OPERA**

**CHAPTER THREE**

**THE NAME GAME**

**this chapter is dedicated to Reta McClain**

* * *

"Really?" Timo smiled at him from across the table. His lip piercing glinted almost mesmerizingly in the light; Roderich tried hard not to stare. "That's interesting."

They were inside the Jade Dragon, a cheerful little Chinese restaurant lit by red spherical lanterns, hidden away in one of the city's many unobtrusive back alleys. The owner, Yao Wang, a Chinese man with a long mane of brown hair and a perpetual smile, had personally served them their meals, jabbering away in excited, thickly-accented German.

"We never get anyone here!" he'd told them both as he laid out knives and forks. The Chinese man was wearing the typical white chef's uniform. With a graceful way of moving and an easy smile, Roderich liked him immediately. "This place is really hard to find, aru. You're the first customers we've gotten all day!"

"Funny that, considering it _is_ nine o'clock in the morning," Timo had drawled in his unique accented voice, flashing a grin in Roderich's direction. Timo had abandoned his leather and chain ensemble from the previous night, now dressed in a rather simple black band T-shirt and jeans. These altogether plain garments seemed almost startling on him; Roderich kept sneaking glances to assure himself Timo wasn't some sort of imposter. His long blond hair was tied haphazardly back and he hid a yawn, nails coated in layers of chipped black polish.

"We were up nearly all last night," he explained to Roderich when asked, ladling a spoonful of soup into his bowl. "Lukas – he's our bassist – wanted to change our name to something cooler."

"That reminds me of my friend," said Roderich, thinking of Gilbert. "He's always going on about stuff that's awesome or not awesome."

Timo smiled amusedly, and took a sip of the soup. "He and Lukas should meet." Then he grimaced, glancing down at his meal. "God, this is boiling." Taking a large gulp of water, he coughed, clearing his throat, and continued, "I'm having trouble coming up with a new name."

"How did you get your old one?" Roderich asked. His dumpling lay on his plate, untouched. "The Nordic Five, was it?"

Timo grimaced again, and shuddered. "Seriously, that name has to be the least-fitting name for a metal band I have ever heard. Who calls their band 'the Nordic Five'?"

Roderich blinked, slightly confused. "You do."

Timo laughed. "Touché. But seriously, I need help."

Roderich blinked again, this time in surprise. "You want me to help? But… shouldn't you work it out with your band members?"

"Oh, I am, don't worry," Timo assured him. "Lukas has been texting me potential band names all day, ever since…" A low ping sounded and he glanced at his pocket. "Ah, right on schedule." Fishing out his phone, he squinted at the screen, before laughing and placing it back in his pocket again. "That guy's insane."

Roderich smiled. "Why, what did he suggest?"

Timo put on a pained expression. "The Crazy Flying Hobnobs."

Roderich shook his head. "Don't choose that one."

Timo raised an eyebrow and grinned. "I think that's obvious."

"How did you decide the first name?" Roderich asked him.

Timo tilted his head on one side, considering. "Well, it was really just a spur of the moment thing." He laughed self-consciously. "When we were first starting out, we had a drunken bet on who would choose the name and Mathias – he's our lead guitarist – won. He chose the name, but after the concert yesterday, Lukas thinks we should change it." Timo pulled a wry face. "We're a new band – the feature band Nightwish was intending to play with cancelled, so we got shuffled in as a reserve by the record label."

Roderich was impressed. He'd worked with Romulus long enough to appreciate just how complicated the business of managing a record label could be. "That was a stroke of luck."

"I know, right?" Timo laughed. He raked a black-nailed hand through his hair, disrupting several long blond strands. His movements were twitchy yet graceful, reminding Roderich strongly of a cheetah, crouched and poised in readiness. "They're my biggest inspiration. Do you listen to them?"

Roderich shook his head. "No." But he was damned if he didn't go home after this and pester Gilbert for their albums. Roderich was determined to have something in common with Timo; the tall, muscular Finn was the exact opposite of him, and that rankled with him.

"What a pity," Timo lamented. "You should. They're very good." He leant forward, smiling at him. "Anyway, any ideas for the name?"

"Umm…" Roderich's mind ticked. "Well, you're all Finnish aren't you?" he ventured.

Timo shook his head. "No, only me. Lukas is Norwegian, Mathias is Danish, Eirikur – our drummer – he's from Iceland, and our keyboardist Berwald is from Sweden." There was a slight coldness in his voice as he mentioned Berwald, but Roderich decided not to dwell on it.

"So you're all from Scandinavia," Roderich summarized.

Timo leant back, face inscrutable. Whoever Berwald was, Timo clearly didn't like him. "Yeah." He answered softly, running a black nail along the pure white tablecloth. His violet eyes turned distant as they scraped along him, and Roderich couldn't help feeling as though the temperature had been turned down several degrees.

Roderich shivered. "Umm, well…" he was babbling now, anything to gloss over the sudden, awkward silence. "Since, maybe, you're all from Scandinavia…" Timo remained silent, and Roderich surged onwards. "So … that's the north, right? So you could be something like… I don't know…" he cast around for something appropriate. "Messengers of The North? Is that right?"

Timo's face brightened. "Messengers of the North…" he tested the word by drawing it out and Roderich held his breath, wondering nervously if he hadn't just made a complete fool of himself.

Timo's grin flashed white. "That's an awesome name!"

Roderich exhaled in relief and grinned back, feeling suitably pleased. "Thank you." He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and froze, smile turning fixed. Who was it?

Timo was getting out his own phone. "You don't mind if I text Lukas, do you?"

"No, no…" Roderich stayed still in his chair, feeling the vibration of the phone for several moments, before he got up. "I'm just going to the bathroom." Timo waved him off distractedly, brow knitted as he hunched over the tiny screen, and Roderich all but dashed past him. Yao Wang, who was wiping down glasses at the bar, raised an eyebrow and grinned knowingly at him as he passed, for reasons Roderich couldn't possibly fathom.

He reached the bathroom, slammed and locked the cubicle door behind him, and fished his phone out of his pocket.

"Hello?" Roderich snapped. He was so annoyed he could barely breathe.

"Ciao, bello," Romulus's liquid purr shrivelled his annoyance as effectively as weed-killer to an unsuspecting plant; Roderich sat down on the closed toilet with a thump.

"R-Romulus?" Roderich squeaked; his hands had gone suddenly clammy. All his previous guilt about skiving off Romulus's meeting in favour of seeing Timo came back in a rush.

"There's only one of me, bambino," Romulus laughed that thin, unconcerned chuckle of his, and Roderich's stomach clenched in response. In the background he could hear something that sounded like clicking – laptop keys, perhaps? "Why aren't you here, hmm? It's almost ten, and my little musicisto hasn't shown up yet! Why? I'm not _that_ scary."

_I beg to differ,_ thought Roderich, picturing Romulus's proportionally massive build and piercing eyes. "I… I'm sorry, I had other commitments."

"And what commitments are those?" Romulus made it perfectly clear from his tone that he thought Roderich had no semblance of social life at all outside of his work. His condescending, sneering tone made Roderich's teeth clench.

"I've been…" His frantically whirling brain came up blank. What? What was he doing? What could possibly benefit him about hanging out with a Finnish metalhead? All they'd done was discuss musical influences and band names… "I have been researching music."

Romulus's laugh was high-pitched and disbelieving, and Roderich's teeth gritted harder. "But, bambino, you're a musician. Surely you don't need to."

"All musicians need to practise and research," Roderich answered.

"Oh for God's sake, Roderich!" Romulus's sudden change in tone made him jump; the Italian's snarl crackled through the phone's faulty receivers. "Do you think I don't know what you're up to? Erzsébet Héderváry has told me everything."

Roderich very nearly swore, for the first time in his life. "How… how do you know Erzsébet?"

"You idiot." Romulus snarled, sounding uncannily wolf-like. "Erzsébet is a journalist for Hero magazine! I own the magazine she works for!"

"O… oh." Roderich said feebly.

"And what's this she tells me about suddenly deciding to experiment with metal music?"

At least now he had something concrete to contradict; Roderich straightened. "I am not experimenting with metal music," he said firmly down the phone. "All I'm doing is meeting with a man who just happens to be in a metal band."

"Yes." Romulus's tone was condescending. Roderich could hear pages turning in the background. "And is this man Timo Väinämöinen, lead singer of the Nordic Five, who played with Nightwish at der Musikhaus last night?"

"The name's Messengers of the North now," Roderich corrected automatically.

Romulus let rip another snarl. If Roderich didn't know any better, he would have said his boss had suddenly turned into a werewolf. "That's not the point, bambino, and you know it. I can't have you consorting with people with that kind of… _reputation_." Roderich could almost hear Romulus's suppressed shudder before he continued speaking. "It's bad for you, it's bad for me, and it completely ruins your reputation as a classical musician. Alright?"

"How?" Roderich interjected.

"Excuse me?"

"How does it ruin my reputation?" Roderich elaborated.

Romulus let out a weary sigh. "Oh for God's sake." He disconnected.

Roderich removed the phone from his ear and stared down at it, left with more questions than he knew what to do with. The food he had eaten, confusion and guilt all roiled together in his stomach, producing a vicious cocktail that made him swallow uneasily. As he pocketed his phone, one thought stood out stark in his mind.

Erzsébet.

How could she? How could she have betrayed him like this?

Roderich left the bathroom and returned to the table, feeling hollow and shocked. Timo had finished texting on his phone now, and had his feet up on the edge of the table, careful not to disturb any of the pristine cutlery, humming under his breath. He looked up as Roderich approached and smiled.

"Hello again."

Roderich flung himself down into a chair. "Hello." He mumbled. He felt odd – his mouth tasted dry, and there was an odd pounding noise in his ears that had nothing to do with the Chinese opera music that had suddenly turned on.

"What happened?" Timo glanced over his shoulder, unperturbed by the sudden warbling. "Is it the bathrooms? I know some restaurants don't even both cleaning them – it's really disgusting."

"I heard that!" Yao Wang shouted from somewhere in the kitchen, and Roderich couldn't help smiling in spite of himself. There was nothing for him to worry about – the bathrooms had been pristine.

"Anyway," Timo looked back at him, eyes warm with concern. "What's wrong?"

Roderich couldn't answer. The gentleness of those violet eyes just made him feel worse; possibly more effective than a spear at pinning him in place. His hands were shaking as they always did when preluding tears, and suddenly he had never felt more like running away.

He stood up. "I… I'm sorry, but I have to go." His shoulders trembled as he half-turned, gathering his will to leave. "I.. Thank you. For… for the meal. It was really nice."

Timo blinked, composure rattled. "O…oh. Thank you…"

"Goodbye." Roderich hurried out. His eyes burned. Yao Wang had come out of the kitchen, and was watching him from behind the bar; Roderich returned his questioning glance with a watery smile.

As he left, he heard Timo suddenly speak, chattering away on his phone in a language he didn't understand.

"Läget? Det kunde vara bättre. Jag vet inte." A pause. "Kan vi ínte ta bússen istället?"

_He doesn't care about me, _that sudden, irrational thought sprang to Roderich's mind at almost the same time as the tears on his cheeks. The door closed with a tinkle, its jauntiness at odds with Roderich's emotions, and he stepped out into the cold street.

* * *

Notes:

Doesn't care about you? Roderich, dearie, you've only just met him.

What I was trying to go for at the end was basically just a showcase of how sensitive Roderich can be, but… meh, it didn't turn out quite how I'd expected. Let me know how you found it.

This chapter is dedicated to Reta McClain, a wonderful, wonderful person who suggested the name 'Messengers of The North'. My hugs and virtual cookies go to her. Thank you!


	4. The Clash

**COUNTERCULTURE**

**A SYMPHONIC METAL OPERA**

**CHAPTER FOUR **

**THE CLASH**

* * *

**Erzsébet?**

**Erzsébet, talk to me. **

**Erzsébet, why did you tell Romulus?**

**Hey, Erzsébet?**

Roderich dialled Erzsébet again and, holding back tears as to not give himself away, very slowly said "Hi, it's me, Roderich. Call me when you get this."

He hung up, then almost instantly keyed in the number again and waited impatiently for her to pick up.

"Hi, you've reached ErzsébetHéderváry. I'm not here, but my phone is. Talk to it." _Beep_.

Roderich took a deep breath, blinked back tears, and tried to compose himself. Why was her phone off?

Perhaps she was in a meeting.

Roderich was standing on the side of the street. The morning had long trundled merrily into full swing, with all manner of pedestrians streaming in and out of the brightly lit shops and buildings lining the busy street. Predictably, it had begun to rain; Roderich scowled and huffed angrily at the water dripping in rivulets from the faded yellow awning, before calling Erzsébet again.

"Hi, you've reached ErzsébetHéderváry. I'm not here, but my phone is. Talk to it." _Beep_.

Why wasn't she answering her phone?

Roderich took a shuddering breath and decided to go home. "T… taxi!"

A white taxi swerved down the street before screeching to a halt roughly parallel to the Austrian musician, kicking up a spray of dirty water. Roderich yelped and jumped backwards to avoid the wave from the gutter, nearly colliding with somebody behind him.

"Sorry," he muttered. The blonde man he had bumped into launched into yelling in a language he didn't understand, words flying through the air like knives.

"Qu'est que ce passé? Quoi est ton problème?"

"Sorry, sorry!" Roderich yelped, retreating backwards into the taxi. The yelling blonde man quickly grew obscured by a layer of dark-tinted glass as Roderich closed the taxi door. Roderich sighed in relief and sank back against the leather upholstered seat. His hands were shaking; he didn't know how much more excitement he could stand.

"Driver, take me to… hey, get out, this is my ride!" A flurry of more words Roderich didn't understand met his turned back; it wasn't until he turned around that he saw the foreign words belonged to what looked like a youth in his early twenties, sporting a Mohawk of bleach-blonde hair. A heavy, studded black jacket was haphazardly thrown over an artfully torn, safety-pinned white T-shirt bearing a distorted, garbled logo reading 'The Clash'. His jeans were in a similar condition as the shirt, tight black material torn to ribbons around the knees. Completing the ensemble was a pair of heavy black combat boots and a multitude of ear, lip and nose piercings.

Roderich blinked, diverted from his thoughts at the unexpected sight. Perhaps it was his exposure to the Messengers of the North that had dulled his reaction to such things; now he only felt mildly unsettled at the passenger's strange appearance. "S…sorry, I didn't see you…"

The young man's black-ringed eyes narrowed and he snapped off another volley of words, obviously intended to be derogatory.

Roderich smiled weakly. "I'm sorry, I don't understand…"

"Oh my god," the youth groaned. The German words, although few, made Roderich feel marginally more relieved. "Do you speak English? Parlez-vous français?"

Latching onto the few words he understood, Roderich shook his head. "Sorry, I don't speak English. Do you speak German?"

The stranger flung up his hands. "Finally! We're getting somewhere!"

The taxi driver honked the horn, and Roderich nearly jumped out of his skin. "Hey, you two back there, where do you want to go?" he spoke in a strange lisping, lyrical way of speaking.

"_I _need to get to the Himmelblaue Stadion," the stranger fired back. He had an odd accent that made his words sound crisp and modulated – English, maybe? "I don't know where _he _wants to go. He jumped in after me." He jabbed his thumb at Roderich, and the Austrian noticed with some trepidation the stranger had the anarchist symbol painted in bright orange on each thumbnail.

The taxi driver rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily. He had short cropped brown hair, olive skin, green eyes, and looked as though he hadn't slept a full night in his life. "Dios. The Himmelblaue Stadion for you, and…" he looked questioningly back over his shoulder at Roderich.

Roderich smiled unconvincingly back. "Umm… Hohlstrasse, please."

The taxi driver exhaled and closed his eyes briefly, possibly trying to contain his frustration. "Two places, each a mile away from each other. Okay." His words practically dripped sarcasm as the belligerent taxi driver turned around and stomped on the accelerator with rather more force that Roderich considered necessary.

They drove along in silence for several moments until, seemingly unable to contain himself any longer, the stranger burst out. "Okay, so, who exactly are you?"

Roderich processed this in startled silence. "Umm… why do you ask?" he was slightly wary of the boy, dressed as he was in all his ripped clothing, piercings and spiky white-blonde hair. A guitar sat beside him, the broad leather case almost dwarfing the boy sitting beside it.

Unless Roderich was very much mistaken, he was sitting next to a punk.

The youth steepled his fingers. They were unusually long fingers and pale, paler than Roderich could have imagined, with short nails coated in layers of chipped black polish. "Your name's Roderich Edelstein, right? How was the meeting earlier? I hear the Jade Dragon's got some excellent dumplings."

Roderich could almost feel his heart consciously seize up in shock. "How… how do you know that?" he cried.

The youth grinned. His spiky hair and pierced face looked surprisingly young when stretched. "I don't know, I see." His eyes flitted across Roderich's face. "Your suit is formal. From previous videos I see that's just a personal taste, but judging from the particular brand of cologne your wearing, I see you want to put on a good impression," he sniffed the air, then continued, "You've also gone to the liberty to shave. Several strands of blonde hair on your right shoulder indicate you were seeing somebody, male, and very tall, yet judging by the slump of your shoulders, it'd say it didn't go well. You've been unconsciously picking at your right pocket ever since you got in, you want to get on the phone but you're afraid of what will happen if you do, that says to me that somebody outside the meeting was responsible for it going badly, you're a privileged musician taken under the wing of Romulus Vargas, so why would a meeting make you feel guilty?"

Roderich stared at the boy, open-mouthed. Even the taxi driver in the front seemed to be listening, glancing surreptitiously over his shoulder at the passengers in the back every five or so minutes with wide eyes.

"Unless it was a meeting you know full very Mr Vargas wouldn't like," the boy hissed through his teeth. His eyes were unfocused and darting, plotting, working out. "The only genre of music I know that would be enough to make Mr Vargas forbid a meeting is metal, bit of a wild assumption, but judging by the black cloth fibres clinging to your suit, I'm probably not far off. The only metal band I know that a classical musician of such a particular genre like yourself would be interested in is either Nightwish or Messengers of the North, who played in der Musikhaus last night. As Nightwish has already left Germany for Moscow, you've likely been to meet a member of Messengers of the North, yes, you did, it was the lead singer.

"A receipt for the Jade Dragon is sticking out of your suit pocket, you might want to tuck that back in, besides, your breath holds the very same scent as chicken dumplings." The boy sucked in a breath, exhaled, and continued steamrollering on. "The only restaurant in this part of the city that stocks chicken dumplings at all times of the day is the Jade Dragon, run by a Mr Yao Wang. So, in conclusion, you've been to the Jade Dragon to meet with Mr Väinämöinen to discuss musical influences, but have not been allowed to continue with the collaboration due to Mr Romulus Vargas."

"How do you know all that?" Roderich demanded of the boy, heart pounding. He didn't need to ask how the boy knew Romulus; everybody in Germany knew Romulus Vargas, connected with every industry as he was.

"That was amazing!" the taxi driver exclaimed. Both the strange boy and Roderich jumped.

"I told you, I don't know, I see," the boy answered Roderich, slightly grumpily. "There's a whole world out there to observe if people would just open their eyes."

"What's your name?"

The youth glanced up at him. Something almost like consternation slid through the background of his bright green eyes. "Arthur Kirkland. I know who you are; you don't need to tell me, Roderich Edelstein."

"Why are you on your way to the Himmelblaue Stadion?" Roderich asked. In the light of Arthur's deductions, his questions seemed almost embarrassing, and he cringed. The Himmelblaue Stadion was a famous stadium in the inner city renowned for being a hub of activity relating to the arts. Poets gave recitals there, theatre groups performed productions, artists showed off their paintings, singers sang, musicians played, comedians joked and writers discussed their books. Anyone who wanted to make a scene in the art world normally began their work in the Stadion; Roderich himself had given several performances there. He nodded at the guitar case. "Are you a guitarist?"

Arthur looked almost uncomfortable. "I'm a singer. I'm performing a mash-up of songs from the Clash."

"I love the Clash!" the taxi driver exclaimed.

"Oh for God's sake, just keep driving, will you?" Arthur fired back. The driver obliged with almost indecent enthusiasm, swerving down the street so fast it nearly gave Roderich a heart attack.

Once he had regained his breath, Roderich gasped "Who are the Clash?"

"A punk band." Arthur's fingers splayed protectively across the guitar case next to him.

Roderich retreated slightly, cowed by his fellow passenger's taciturn manner. "Oh. Okay. That's nice."

Arthur's acid-green eyes flicked up to his face, clearly concerned with other, more pressing matters. "Why doesn't Romulus allow you to visit the Messengers of The North?"

Roderich slumped in his seat, resigning himself to a tirade of interrogation by his strange companion. It was funny how people came to know each other in just a few minutes. "I don't know." He said hopelessly. The taxi driver made a small noise, but he ignored it. "He thinks they'll ruin my reputation."

Arthur made a small noncommittal noise. "He's a bloody idiot."

His criticism made Roderich smile in spite of himself. "Yes," he said darkly, sinking further back against the seat. "I'm beginning to think he is." The hopelessness of the situation overcame him and he threw up his arms. "I mean, for heaven's sake, how on earth can hanging out with a metal band ruin my reputation? What, does he think it will clash with me being a classical composer? And the Messengers of the North are leaving for Berlin today!" Roderich buried his face in his hands. "Why didn't I say something to Timo? I'm such an idiot! And my friend…" he laughed bitterly, "my friend is the one who told Romulus about the meeting! She told him, and now I can't visit them anymore!"

The driver made a choking noise and took one hand off the wheel to wipe his eyes "Dios, I haven't cried this much since Toy Story 3!"

Arthur's voice cut over the taxi driver. "Why don't you fight him?"

Roderich lifted his head to stare at the punk, incredulousness wiping away his previous concerns. "Excuse me?"

Arthur cracked his neck. The light from the world outside the car window danced across his face, casting elongated shadows along his cheekbones and swallowing his eyes into black holes. He looked positively murderous. "You got along fine posting videos on YouTube before he found you," he said bluntly, "You could do it again. You don't really need him, do you?"

Romulus blinked, startled by the suggestion. Once again, he became acutely aware of the anarchy symbol painted in orange on Arthur's thumbnails. "But… but, I do. I need him for publicity, I need him to recommend venues to me, I need him for inspiration… I need him for everything!"

Arthur bristled and held up his hands in the universal 'Calm down' gesture. His fingers looked almost unnaturally white in the dimness of the taxi. "Okay, okay. Jesus. I was just saying."

Unsettled, Roderich turned to stare out the window, wishing he could run away from the blonde punk sitting next to him, and any other disconcerting ideas he might offer. The outside daylight flung the myriad of fingerprints on the windowpane into high relief; Roderich shuddered surreptitiously and wiped them off with his sleeve.

"What's the problem, anyway?" the taxi driver's voice broke the silence, and both Roderich and Arthur turned to stare at him. The driver had stopped at a red light and turned around to speak to them over the back of his seat, his green eyes puzzled. "Mr Vargas can't, like, un-allow you to use your phone, can he? You can still call these Messengers of the Forth, or whatever."

"That's Messengers of the North, and your grammar is atrocious," Arthur muttered, but Roderich's heart leapt. The funny little taxi driver was right! Nothing was stopping him from simply _calling _Timo… and he had his phone number! True, Timo would likely be very busy with his commitments to the band so Roderich would have be very careful about the times he called, but…

"Yes!" Roderich cried.

Arthur seconded his opinion with a nod. "Yeah. And when you're done calling him, then you can deal with that friend of yours."

The taxi driver grinned as Roderich got out his phone. Out of the corner of his eye, Roderich saw Arthur, through his façade of indifference, glance curiously at the phone's screen.

He had one new text from Gilbert.

**How are you, and has he agreed to collaborate yet? XD **

Thoughts of his intentions temporarily flew out of his head, and Roderich rolled his eyes. "He's an idiot."

Arthur craned his neck. "Who? The lead singer?"

"No, another friend of mine."

Arthur leant back. "Tell him about your other friend's betrayal. Then you can both have at her." He broke off to intently study his fingernails, leaving Roderich blinking, flustered.

"Umm… well…" Roderich glanced back at the screen. "Huh. Maybe." A rush of sudden conviction shocked him and set his fingers trembling as they aligned themselves to the phone with the unerring natural skill of a pianist.

**Guess what? **

… **you're engaged to him? Hahaha. **

**Erzsébet told Romulus about our meeting. I'm not allowed to see Timo or the band anymore. **

Gilbert responded to this with a single word so horrifying Roderich yelped and instantly deleted the text.

"What? What happened?" the taxi driver cried. Arthur sat in stony silence, his bright green eyes flickering to Roderich and the phone and back.

"I told my friend about my other friend – Erzsébet's – betrayal." Roderich answered. "He called her a bitch." He grimaced as the word left his mouth; the expletive left a sour aftertaste.

Arthur sat back. "Well, she is." He made it sound simple.

Roderich shook his head fast. "No, no, she's not, she's just…"

"Dios, send the text already!" the taxi driver yelled from the front seat.

Roderich took a deep breath, and began to type.

**But I can still call Timo. **

**I don't care. When you get back, I'm going over to your house, and we're going to plot how best to get back at that bitch. **

**Can't we resolve this diplomatically?**

**I vote poison. And since when were you a dictionary? **

Roderich sighed. "He's impossible."

The taxi braked suddenly; Roderich started as the world outside came to a screeching halt.

"This is your stop." The taxi driver chirped. As Roderich's hand drifted to the door handle, the driver added eagerly. "Good luck! I hope everything goes well!"

Roderich smiled at the funny little brunette man with bright green eyes and a beaming smile. "Thank you." He glanced back at the punk. "And thank you too, Arthur."

Arthur nodded coolly, and, as he left the taxi, Roderich made a mental note to find out more about the English punk singer Arthur Kirkland. Several donations in the right direction, he knew from his time with Romulus, could go a long way.

As he left the taxi, Roderich heard Arthur mutter under his breath; "This won't go well."

_We'll see about that, _Roderich said, and determinedly started forward into the bright new day.

* * *

Notes:

*grimaces and dies from the cheesy ending*

Sherlock!Punk!England, anybody? :P

Let's play Where's The Hetalia Characters? :P Virtual hugs to all those who can spot and name every character mentioned strongly or obliquely in this chapter, go! :D

I was a bit unhappy with this chapter; I didn't go at all the way I had first planned. Is it just me, or does the descriptiveness seem to be getting a bit… weak? And I could swear the chapter lengths are dwindling. Hmm...

Reviews and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated.


	5. Zimmer 483

COUNTERCULTURE

A SYMPHONIC METAL OPERA

CHAPTER FIVE

ZIMMER 483

When Roderich marched up the driveway to Erszébet's front door with Gilbert behind him, he couldn't have felt more determined.

"Erszébet!" he yelled, rapping on the door with his fist. Peering through the stained-glass window revealed nothing but a distorted view of the dark corridor beyond, so he knocked again. "Erszébet!"

"Break down the door, Roderich, put some back into it!" Gilbert barked. Roderich had never heard the German bark before – he sounded disturbingly canine.

Roderich breathed in and turned back to the door. "Erszébet!" He raised his fist to knock but before his knuckles connected with the hard brown wood, the door fell away, revealing the face of his friend – Roderich very nearly rammed his fist into her face.

"Gaah!" he yelped and jumped backwards. His heart was suddenly pounding. "Erszébet!"

Erszébet looked positively stricken. "Oh my God, Roderich!"

"Erszébet!" Roderich gasped.

"WHY?" Gilbert shrieked, sounding for all the world like a particularly vengeful harpy, with pale-blonde hair, ruddy brown eyes and a look on his face that suggested he was about to murder the unsuspecting Hungarian.

Erszébet clapped a hand to her mouth, big brown eyes slowly filling with anguish. "Ohmigod, Roderich, I'm so, so sorry, I didn't want to tell him, but the magazine's experiencing a budget cut and Romulus threatened to cut my raise if I didn't give him a good story but I couldn't think of any and…" she faltered, gave a short gasp, and exhaled. "Anyway, I'm so sorry, I've just made biscuits, would you like one?"

"We don't need your biscuits, sister!" Gilbert barked, but Roderich was tempted. Erszébet had the habit of baking delicious pastries and confectionary whenever she was feeling stressed or particularly emotional, and judging by the smell wafting from the end of the hallway, she'd just baked chocolate ones.

"Come on," Roderich said to Gilbert, and entered Erszébet's house.

"But Roderich!"

The inside of Erszébet's head seemed to wrap him in its strange, heady combination of 80s furniture, soaring, mock-Victorian ceiling designs and bakery scent and pulled him down the corridor to the kitchen. He didn't need to ask the way – he had been to Erszébet's house many times before. She was his friend, for heaven's sake.

"Are you angry?" Erszébet asked once they were seated around her vast white kitchen table. Gilbert had instantly been mollified by the presence of Erszébet's divine chocolate biscuits, and had wolfed down four before the rest of his friends had properly sat down. He now sat at the other end of the table munching on a fourth, filling in the crossword in the newspaper with a pen he had procured from one of his cavernous pockets, and whistling under his breath. Erszébet, it seemed, had been well and truly forgiven.

"Sorry?" Roderich asked, distracted by his pale blonde German friend.

"Are you angry?" Erszébet repeated. When Roderich didn't say anything, she added. "You have every right to be, Roderich, I'm so sorry, the article hasn't gone out of the editing stage, I could change it…"

"Could you?" Roderich asked gratefully, seizing on the chance. It was a strange experience, having all your day-to-day goings-on instantly circulated and scrutinized by the media, and he welcomed any chance to divert it.

Erszébet nodded vigorously. "Yes, of course, I could make it sound like you've refused to collaborate. That way, Romulus won't have anything to get mad at, will he?"

Roderich's heart leapt; before he knew what he was doing, he had hugged his friend. "You're a genius!"

Gilbert joined in, leaping up from his end of the table and wrapping his long arms around them in a bear hug. "No idea what's going on, but yay! Group hug!"

Erszébet laughed, and Roderich smiled, slightly puzzled by the feeling of his heart. It seemed lighter than it had been all day.

**ooOOoo**

Timo got home late that night, his footsteps echoing slightly along the draughty corridor as he climbed the flight of stairs. The flickering light-bulbs sunk into the ceiling at irregular intervals cast wavering, unsteady shadows along the peeling green-grey wallpaper, but he ignored them. According to the hotel's staff, the light had been faulty for so long now nobody took any notice. If any calls were made to complain, they were normally ignored.

The short flight of stairs led to a small landing, the walls panelled dark wood. A single door with the numeral 483 scratched into the thick green painted wood smugly faced him. Timo covered a yawn with his hand, steeled himself, slid his cardkey into the slot and waited for the door to hum open.

"Hey…" Lukas's voice drawled out from the depths of the dingy apartment like a ball of string unravelling; lazy, laid-back and deep. The Norwegian was sprawled out on the couch, dark clothes and blonde hair clashing terrifically with the deep brown upholstery as he stared at the TV with glazed eyes. To look at, Lukas was the image of a stereotypical stoner, but Timo knew Lukas had never touched drugs in his life. Contrary to popular belief, Lukas Snorrison was actually a clean-living vegetarian environmentalist. It was just his laziness that let the whole image down.

"Hey, Lukas." Timo yawned in reply. The train ride to Berlin had exacted its toll on all of them; too tired to do anything else, the members of the newly-named Messengers of the North had spent the majority of the afternoon sleeping and lazing around the cramped hotel room. It was only Timo's restlessness that had urged him outside to walk around and experience the sights of Berlin.

The combined appetites of Lukas and his brother Eirikur had reduced the kitchenette to little more than a warzone of dirtied plates, half-filled glasses and sticky butter knives. In the corner of the room, somebody's suitcase – Matthias' maybe? – overflowed a stream of dark leather onto the mint-green carpet. Timo was just starting towards in with the intention of putting it in order, when a voice sneered out of the shadows. "What's that around your neck, pearls?"

Timo stiffened. "No, diamonds."

Berwald inhaled smoke, then exhaled with a hacking cough. "Well, I don't like it. It makes you look weird. Take it off."

Timo toyed with the chrome bead necklace, feeling rebellious. "No, I don't think I will. I got it from a shop."

"Shopping for jewellery?" The Swedish man coughed as he flung himself down the couch, narrowly avoiding squashing Lukas.

Timo's patience frayed. "It was a gift shop, alright? I thought I might get myself a souvenir."

As he turned away to look for something to eat in the kitchen, he heard Berwald mutter 'Still looks weird."

Timo flung up his hands. "For God's sake!" he snarled and took off for the room he had claimed, his footsteps pounding across the carpet. Lukas made a small noise as he headed for the door.

"Guys." Matthias materialized out of nowhere, blocking Timo's access to the doorway. The Danish man's long tail of blonde-brown hair brushed over his shoulder, and his deep brown eyes reminded Timo of a particularly faithful dog. "Guys." Matthias said again, eyes moving across the scene in front of him. "Just chill, alright? We're all pretty tired."

"Some more tired than others," Lukas mumbled, ignoring the glare Berwald shot him.

"Where's Eirikur?" Timo asked, suddenly wanting nothing more than to escape the confined stuffiness of the small hotel room.

Mathias avoided his gaze. "Last I heard, on the roof."

"The car park?" Timo asked with some trepidation. Eirikur had a history of eccentricities, from running away from home at sixteen on a ferry bound for Iceland, to staying up until one o'clock in the morning pounding out a repetitive beat over and over again for seemingly no purpose whatsoever. When Timo had asked his brother about it, Lukas had shrugged it off as simply a by-product of Eirikur's sensitivity – the boy was a typical virtuoso, obsessed with his drumming, and inclined to block out the whole world while fixated on his beloved silver drumkit.

Lukas yawned. "Yeah."

Timo turned and headed for the stairs that would lead him to the roof.

The rooftop car park was cold and windswept; the setting sun sinking over the city of Berlin in a chiaroscuro of red and gold. Timo squinted as he glanced around at the cars cramming the rooftop, metal shells reduced to black silhouettes in the sun's glare.

He found Eirikur sitting on the edge of the roof, legs dangling like washing hung out to dry. The boy's eyes were fixed on the city below, jaggedly cut blonde hair blowing across his face in the gust of wind. He was mouthing something, lips moving.

"Hann mænir út í myrkrið svart, man þa tið er allt var bjart…"

"Hey, Eirikur." Timo sat down beside him.

The blonde boy glanced disinterestedly at him before turning back to scour the city below with his eyes. "Hello, Timo." He spoke German - they all did, finding it easier to communicate with rather than the motley collection of various Scandinavian languages that were their respective native tongues. The majority of the band had met at the prestigious Welt Academie Für Musik, a famous school in Leipzig specifically designed to meet the needs of various university-level students looking to start a career in music.

"Looking for something down there?" Timo asked, peering down.

"I'm trying to see if I can find the Brandenburg Gate." Eirikur answered distantly.

Timo followed his gaze. "Isn't it over there?" he pointed at the glittering gold monolith in the distance, vaguely outlined between the hunched backs of the houses.

Eirikur smiled serenely. "Yes. I knew that."

Timo blinked. "Oh. Alright then."

Eirikur glanced at him. "Have you heard any news about the collaboration yet?"

Timo silently groaned. Eirikur had been incredibly excited when Timo had informed the band they might be collaborating with the famous classical composer Roderich Edelstein, despite all Berwald's mutterings about how they 'didn't need a fairy to tell them how to play music'.

"I don't know, Eirikur. He left before I had a chance to ask him." Tim recalled how shocked the virtuoso pianist had seemed, and frowned slightly. What had been wrong with him? What had been the matter?

Eirikur seemed almost unnaturally eager. "But did he ask you to call him back? You do have his number, right?"

"Yeah." Timo murmured, his hand going automatically to the phone in his back pocket. "But I won't call him just yet, though, he's probably really busy…"

A phone dinged. For a brief, exciting second, Timo thought it was his, but then he saw Eirikur fishing his battered red phone from the pocket of his jeans, and his hopes evaporated.

"Oh!" Eirikur's eyebrows shot up.

Timo craned his neck. "What is it?"

Eirikur seemed unusually unsettled. "You know how I've subscribed to Hero magazine?"

Timo thought back until he remember – Hero magazine was one of the most popular worldwide magazines, with exclusive reports on everything, from music to science. "Yeah."

"The latest issue has just come in. Apparently, Roderich Edelstein stated in a press conference that he's refused to collaborate with Messengers of the North."

Timo's heart jumped to his throat and hung there, stuck. Suddenly, his hopes were brutally shattered.

"Messengers of the North…" Eirikur hummed thoughtfully. "That's our new name, isn't it?"

Timo swallowed. Tried to smile, when really all he felt like doing was punching someone. "Yeah. It is."

**ooOOoo**

To be continued…

Notes: 

Noooooo!

Don't worry, everybody, please, no riots, try to calm down! *holds back horde of screaming readers before calling in the riot squad* Everybody, please, stay calm! Keep calm! Don't worry!

*insert keep-calm-and-carry-on jokes here*

So, yes.

The reason for this chapter being excruciatingly late: exams. Need I say more? Actually, my exams have really only just started, so the next chapter of this will probably be slow to arrive too *calls in second riot squad* I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry but there's only so much my life can handle at the moment.

*blows kiss* Thank you so much for reading, you're all too lovely.

Reviews and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated.


	6. Metal and Classical

**COUNTERCULTURE**

**A SYMPHONIC METAL OPERA**

**CHAPTER SIX**

**METAL AND CLASSICAL **

**(AND A FABULOUS POLE) **

**this chapter is dedicated to MisstiqueRose**

* * *

When Roderich sat down at his breakfast table the next morning and opened the newspaper, he nearly spat out his previous gulp of orange juice.

CLASSICAL COMPOSER RODERICH EDELSTEIN REFUSES COLLABORATION, the headline screamed. Then, in a slightly more subdued tone, it continued in smaller text below. "Metal and classical music were never supposed to mix."

With an icy, sinking feeling in his stomach that nearly rivalled the aftertaste of the orange juice, Roderich scanned the rest of the article. It was a sizeable piece, the black text marching determinedly down the majority of the first page and continuing on the second.

_Renowned classical composer Roderich Edelstein, solo composer of the hit 2009 album Requiem Sanctus, has announced in an interview that he will not be collaborating with the Scandinavian symphonic metal band Messengers of the North (formerly the Nordic Five)._

"_He's been really busy with his work lately," Erzsébet Héderváry, close friend of the gifted musician and reporter for the US-based Hero magazine, stated. "As far as I know, he doesn't have the time for collaborations, particularly with a contrasting and controversial music genre such as metal."_

_The Scandinavian symphonic/gothic metal band Messengers of the North was formed in 2011 by lead vocalist Timo Väinämöinen and keyboardist Berwald Oxenstierna of Kitee, Finland. "Roderich Edelstein has always been a big musical influence to us all as a band." Frontman Väinämöinen explained in a previous interview._

_Messengers of the North were not available for comment about this recent development._

"_All I can say is, I'm pleased Roderich has finally sorted out his priorities." Spokesperson and sponsor Romulus Vargas said. "The past months have been particularly hard on him creatively, so I'm glad he's finally started to focus on his music."_

Roderich flung the newspaper down, feeling slightly shaken. Taking a large gulp of orange juice to fortify himself, he sat there in silence, trying to figure out what he should do next. Calling Timo to let him know of Erzsébet's deception was obviously the priority, so Roderich grabbed the landline phone from its cradle on the kitchen bench, keyed in the memorized number, and waited.

There was silence for a moment, then an unfamiliar voice at the other end said "Hello?"

Roderich felt alarmed. "Um, hi, is this Timo?" _Why is somebody else answering Timo's phone?_ He braced himself for the response.

There was another pause. "No, this is his friend Lukas, can I ask who's calling?"

_Certainly you can, you've got a mouth_, Roderich thought, feeling secretly quite proud of his snark. Aloud, he spoke "It's Roderich Edelstein…"

"The classical composer?" there were several fuzzy, static noises and a loud bang – it sounded as if Lukas had dropped the phone. In the background came a flurry of words Roderich didn't understand.

"Lukas, vil de hjælpe mig?"

"Nej, nej," Lukas snapped back. Then: "Sorry about that."

"That's fine," Roderich said. "Could you tell Timo I called?"

"What do you want to speak to him about?" Lukas's voice sounded unnecessarily suspicious, and Roderich began to feel slightly impatient.

"Just tell him not to believe the article in the paper…"

"The one that says you won't be collaborating with us?" there was a rustle of pages.

The words came again. "Lukas, hvem er det?"

"Den klassiske komponist!" Lukas snapped back.

Roderich lost his patience. "Look, could you please just tell Timo that I would like to see him again, and…"

"You would like to see him again?" Lukas repeated.

"WHAT?" A deeper, differently accented voice roared in the background, and Roderich nearly dropped the phone.

There was a rush of whispered conversation in the background, the argument apparently getting quite heated, before Lukas came back again "I'm sorry, I've got to go." He sounded alarmed.

Roderich was worried. "But my message…"

"Yeah, I'll tell him, bye." He hung up.

Roderich removed the phone from his ear, feeling quite deflated. He had no idea what had just happened, and he had no way of knowing if the message would ever reach the Finnish musician… he groaned.

Finishing his breakfast and wandering around the kitchen did nothing to distract himself, so Roderich decided to take a walk outside to clear his head.

Typical of the local weather, the temperature had climbed overnight to an alarming height, which was more than enough incentive for Roderich to buy and ice cream and offload some of the worries that had plagued him the past couple of days.

Roderich had met Feliks Łukasiewicz through Gilbert's brother Ludwig – the uptight doctor apparently had an odd sort of acquaintance with the Polish transvestite, ranging from exasperation to, at times, outright hatred between the two. As far as Roderich knew, Gilbert liked Feliks, simply because of the outlandish man's general outlook on life, as well as his style of clothing. Roderich had never been entirely sure if Feliks' crossdressing was due to a genuine desire to be a woman, or simple a by-product of the Pole's rather eccentric manner. Contrary to what popular culture had Roderich believing of such people, Feliks worked full-time at a small ice cream parlour in the city while he struggled to amass enough money for a job in the fashion industry. "There's a wicked French model I'd love to meet," he'd gushed to Roderich on more than one occasion, "So cool, I'd love to know how he does his hair."

The ice cream parlour – dubbed Cones, the onslaught of American idioms never seemed to end, what did Cones mean anyway? – was still the same as Roderich had always seen in; the same plastic chairs, the same sticky tables covered with thick cloths painted in alarming stripes of pink and white, the same buzzing fluorescent lighting. A small queue was forming at the counter – Feliks seemed to gossip with his customers more than actually serve them. The brown-haired girl he was currently talking to seemed to enjoy it, but the people behind her didn't; soon, they had trickled off, leaving the way for Roderich more or less unbarred.

He slid into line behind the girl. She was tall, taller than him, to his chagrin, and had a head full of brown hair so curly Roderich almost sympathised with her – he could imagine how it felt brushing it. She was chattering away to Feliks, her words having a strange, relaxed accent that seemed to give the impression of overall relaxation – Australian, maybe? Roderich had never heard it before, he liked it.

"So, what are we to do for Tolys' party?" she asked. Her German sounded slightly mangled.

Feliks flung out his arms. "How about we paint it bright pink and when he comes in, we'll pretend we didn't know Raivis was out cold in the storage cupboard?"

The girl laughed. "I don't think that'll help. Good plan, though. Thanks." She accepted the ice cream and moved off.

Feliks looked up. A wide smile spread across his face. "Roderich! Hi!"

"Hi." Roderich said, traipsing forward. He briefly scanned the menu mounted behind the Polish transvestite, trying hard to ignore the man's plunging neckline and twin pearl earrings. "I'll take the chocolate ice cream, thanks."

Feliks paused halfway in grabbing a paper cup. "What's wrong? You look like you've got something on your mind."

It only took a few minutes to fill Feliks in – Roderich's dialogue was occasionally punctuated by several Polish-accented exclamations of "No!", "Shut up!", and "Aww, so cute!" By the time Roderich had finished, Feliks seemed to have forgotten entirely about serving him his ice-cream.

"Just, like, keep pestering him." He said, scooping a splodge of the chocolate into the cup. "If you keep doing that, he'll listen. He has to."

"I know." Roderich said miserably, accepting the ice cream and handing over the required money. "It's just, I don't know if he wants to see me or not. I don't know if he just wants to collaborate, or if he wants to be friends…"

"Give it another couple of days," Feliks said, slamming open the till with perhaps more force than necessary. Feliks had made it clear on multiple occasions that he would rather not be working at Cones at all, seeing the bright pastel-coloured uniforms all staff were required to wear as a heinous fashion offence. His bright purple fingernails glimmered in the light as he rapidly flicked through the array of euro notes, sorting through for the appropriate change. "He'll probably tell you if he does." Catching sight of Roderich's expression, he laughed and reached over to ruffle his hair. "You think too much, Roddy. _Relax, _darling, it's Friday! Live a little!"

Roderich twirled the small plastic spoon absent-mindedly along the paper rim. "Okay. See you, Feliks. Thanks for the ice cream."

"Anytime, darling," Feliks beamed.

Roderich turned and hurried for the door, eager to escape the plastic furniture, harsh fluorescent lighting and sickly pastel hues of the ice cream parlour. The opening door greeted him with a wash of heat, making him grimace as he stepped grudgingly out onto the street. The city streets were eerily empty; most sane people had fled for the blessed coolness of the beach, armed with surfboards as their weapons against the pounding surf, or remained indoors with the air conditioner turned up full-blast, hiding from the scorching heat. The few people that walked along the hot concrete streets looked exhausted, fanning themselves with anything that came to hand.

His phone buzzed, and Roderich nearly jumped out of his skin. It was from Timo.

**My friends have been telling me how you want to see me again. Why? You've refused to collaborate.**

Roderich swallowed. **I thought we could maybe just be friends?**

Timo's response was almost palpably vitriolic. **Why? 'Metal and classical were never supposed to mix', remember?**

**I just…** Roderich's shoulders slumped. Did music really define them so much, to the extent that two people were incompatible as friends?** I just want to see you, but my sponsor won't allow it. He forbids collaborations too.**

**You need to do something about that sponsor, he's too overprotective.**

Roderich was instantly reminded of Arthur Kirkland and his anarchist comments in the back of the taxi. **What can I do?**

**Confront him?** Timo made it sound like it was the simplest thing in the world. **Ask him face-to-face why you aren't allowed to collaborate with any bands.** r/4195431/

**Good idea. I think I will.**

Taking a breath, Roderich raised his phone to dial Romulus Vargas.

_Ring, ring, ring…_

"I'm sorry," the voice of Romulus's secretary came back on the third ring, sounding rushed and panicked. "Mr Vargas had just collapsed and stopped breathing. You'll have to call back later."

_Beep. _The phone went dead, and Roderich gasped, a little too late. "What?"

* * *

Notes:

A bit of a filler chapter, but writing this chapter purely to boost the chapter count seemed a bit lazy, so I had to end it on a cliffhanger :P I couldn't resist.

This chapter is dedicated to my darling friend MisstiqueRose *hugs* Poland fabulous enough for you, dearie? :P That goes to all readers – what did you think of my characterization of Poland? It turned out completely different to what I expected – I was surprised.

Reviews and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated.


	7. An Injured Wolf

**COUNTERCULTURE**

**A SYMPHONIC METAL OPERA**

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

**AN INJURED WOLF**

* * *

Romano Vargas hated hospitals. He had hated them ever since his mother had died – hated the cloying reek of antiseptic that seemed to cling to every pale wall, hated the almost palpable air of depression that seemed to hover over every edifice like a shroud, hated the muted murmuring of white-coated staff.

He recrossed his legs and flipped through the same magazine for around about the tenth time. If he didn't have something to preoccupy his hands, they would surely throttle the receptionist, who was chewing gum with the type of vigour normally only reserved for a boxer pummelling his opponent. Seeing the same glossy, airbrushed models slide past his nose for the tenth time, he gave vent to a loud, impatient hiss.

"Shut up, Romano," Feliciano murmured absently in German. His brother looked as poised and as graceful as he had always looked, neat and businesslike in the crisp folds of a sky-blue suit, turning the pages of an out-of-date newspaper with slender fingers. The shivering brunette girl shooting sidelong glances at him from the corner of the room only increased Romano's anger – surely she was too sick to ogle.

Romano slumped back against the flimsy plastic chair and sighed, yanking his fingers through his spikes of badly-dyed hair. His latest attempt at dying his hair black to emulate the rockstars he favoured had been nothing short of a failure – he was left with a mullet he was sure had gone out of fashion twenty years ago, and brown hair that looked as though it had been speckled with tar. Judging by the stares he attracted, the clothes were rubbish too – black leather jeans so tight it had taken an hour to get them on properly, and a black jacket hung with various Nordic Five badges, badges that were now useless for resale due to his beloved band's name change.

"Aren't you worried about him?" Romano hissed at Feliciano in Italian. Romano had always hated German – with its harsh, guttural consonants and ridiculously rounded vowels, it had always seemed to be a lower, inferior language compared to his native Italian. Being the puffed-up businessman he was, Feliciano had always favoured German, although Romano had always thought it was more due to his affair with the German psychiatrist Dr Ludwig Beilschmidt, back when his brother was still undergoing his 'bi-curious' phase.

"Of course I am," Feliciano answered nonchalantly, flicking an imaginary hair from the knee of his suit pants and tipping a wink at the brunette girl at the same time. She instantly giggled and looked away. "He's our father, after all."

Romano crossed his arms and treated his brother to a narrow-eyed glare. "You didn't seem to like him too much when you walked out." Feliciano's abandonment had always been a sore point amongst the Vargas household. Suddenly finding himself the single parent of two unruly Italian children, and with a conglomerate empire encompassing half of Europe to boot, Romulus's parenting skills had crashed and burned while his children ran rings around him, each competing for his attention. For all the good it had done – Romulus still remained unshakeably married to his work, sparing not so much as a kind word to his children and turning a blind eye throughout Romano's childhood when an exasperated principal claimed he had been caught in a punch-up _again_. Feliciano had always been the more intelligent of the two, the golden child – rather than spend his life blasting heavy metal music and hanging out with the type of people who looked as though they belonged in a correctional facility, Feliciano had rocketed through high school with the type of scores that had every teacher from Hamburg to Leipzig screaming about his 'natural talent'. He had persisted in his high-flying average, securing a job as a high-ranking official in one of Germany's most prestigious art galleries the day before he had walked out on his family for good. Romano had spent _his _life in a squalid apartment in Berlin, trudging away at his job as a mailroom clerk while he harboured a secret desire to be a guitarist and spent all of his meagre wage buying Messengers Of The North CDs.

Realizing his brother wasn't going to answer, Romano sighed and resolutely plugged in his headphones, ignoring the disapproving look shot to him by Feliciano. Timo _Väinämöinen's Sonnet For A Stargazer__soared over the tinny speakers, filling Romano's ears with its sweet transfusion of elegant notes. _Romano had been an avid fan of the Scandinavian metal band since their conception in 2011, obsessively following them in every magazine article he could get his hands on; the wallpaper in his room had been almost entirely eclipsed by tattered band posters. The minute-long song soon ended, to be replaced by Arthur Kirkland's cover of Toyz; Romano listened in slight trepidation. He had never really liked the English punk musician, with all his snarl, and the layers of attitude that made interviews painful to watch.

"Show me your toys, I wanna be your choice," Kirkland warbled in annoyingly-accented English. "Show me your toys, show me your…"

Romano hit the stop button. "Annoying bitch," he muttered.

Feliciano coughed behind a delicate white hand, hazel eyes suddenly frigid. "Romano…"

Romano flipped him the finger and settled back down, scrolling through the playlist until he found Messenger of The North's newest single 'Blame The Bassist'. A weird, psychedelic song, the melody crescendoing into a climax until it was interrupted by a short, abrupt _blip! _from the bass guitarist. The bass line continued for several seconds, wandering up and down several octaves, before the keyboard wrestled the music away and back into the grasp of the keys and vocals. It was a weird song.

"Romano, turn that off, I can hear it," Feliciano murmured.

Romano shot him a filthy look. "You have stupidly sensitive hearing," He turned it up louder.

Feliciano sighed.

A white coated nurse hurried into the waiting room. "Mr Vargas?" she inquired of the room, looking relieved as Feliciano raised a hand. She held open the door. "You can see him now."

"Wait!" The German word was fired from the doorway at a volume so loud Romano could hear it over the bass; both he and Feliciano turned just in time to see a man hurry into the room. The man was tall and almost girlishly slender, dressed in a long-sleeved white shirt and dark jeans. Brown hair hung straight around his oval-shaped face, formulating into a strange cowlick by his right eye, and his eyes were wide behind his glasses. He came skidding into the room, arms flailing wildly to keep his balance; Romano saw what looked like crumpled sheet music clenched in his waving fist. "Is this where Romulus Vargas is being held?" he demanded.

Feliciano coughed; the nurse looked uncomfortable. "And you are?"

The man raked a hand through his hair, looking distracted. "Roderich Edelstein, I'm a colleague of his. Is he…"

The nurse bustled forward. "I'm sorry, Mr Edelstein, but as of now, the only people allowed to see Mr Vargas are his family. You will have to wait."

Roderich faltered. "But I… alright." He looked around the room, eyes brightening as they fell upon the brunette girl, who was inconspicuously reading a magazine in the corner. "Erzsébet!" He hurried over.

Feliciano's hand descended on Romano's shoulder, distracting him from his view of the strange man. "Come on," Feliciano muttered, and steered his brother towards the waiting door.

At the sight of his father's massive frame lying so feebly on the hospital bed, Romano's throat grew constricted. Romulus Vargas had always been a young-looking man, brown hair only lightly dusted with grey, but seeing him lying there, Romano was struck by how _old _he really was. Romulus Vargas' skin was thin as rice paper, pockmarked with age and worked with pulsating veins.

Feliciano let out a small gasp and rushed to his father's side. "Papa!"

Romano grimaced at his brother's term of endearment. "Dear God…"

"Felici…" Romulus coughed from the bed, the name withering in his throat before he had even finished, and Romano's teeth gritted.

"I'm here too." Romano said pointedly, ignoring Feliciano's expression.

Romulus's eyes flickered over to him with something almost like scorn. "How clever of you to notice that."

Feliciano made a frantic noise in the back of his throat; when Romano looked, tears were streaming down his face. "Please, Papa, don't fight, it's bad for your health, you…" Overcome, the Italian businessman buried his face in his father's shoulder while Romano nearly gagged and wondered if it was too late to run away. For he did not want his father staring at him as if unaware of the golden child sobbing his eyes out on his shoulder.

Romulus's eyes widened. "Roma…no…" his voice was wracked by a bout of coughing before he felt fit to continue. "What are you wearing?"

Romano looked down at himself and felt insulted. Of course, his father would think it was too much. He tapped his tongue stud against his teeth and wondered absently what would happen if he were to show it.

"I've told you," Romulus rasped, his eyes narrowing, "countless times to…" he broke off coughing again.

Feliciano recovered himself and stepped backwards, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. "Papa, please don't," he begged, his eyes darting from his father to his brother and back. "This is bad for your health… I… I'll call a doctor…"

Romulus glared at Feliciano, and what he said next nearly made Romano cheer "Didn't I tell you to stop speaking German?"

Feliciano cringed. "Yes, Papa…"

"Well, stop it." Romulus barked, and Romano couldn't help but grin.

An unfamiliar classical song broke over Romano's headphones; he glanced down in surprise. Squinting at the tiny screen brought to light the figure of a bespectacled man in a plain white shirt and trousers sitting seated at a piano, with closed eyes and an expression normally only reserved for the virtuous. Elaborate, fancy black script at the bottom read _Roderich Edelstein Sanctus Arcticus. _

A nurse poked her head around the door. "Visiting hours are up now," her tone brooked no argument but Romano wasn't listening, instead staring at the small picture on his iPod screen. He had the strangest feeling he had seen the man before.

Meanwhile, Feliciano was questioning the nurse like a police officer while Romulus watched wearily from the bed. "What's wrong with him?" he demanded.

"It was a heart attack," the nurse answered curtly, raking shut the curtains around Romulus's bed to a startled squawk of protest from the occupant. "We believe it's stress-induced. We'll just keep him here for another couple of days to run some tests, but he should be back on his feet by next week."

"I'm right here," Romulus grumbled in Italian from his obscured position; the German nurse stared bewilderedly at the curtains.

"He's Italian," Feliciano explained, and the nurse's expression cleared. He glanced at Romano – seconds later, his nails closed over his arm. "Come on, Romano."

Romano allowed himself to be dragged back into the waiting room. As Feliciano talked with the receptionist in a low voice, Romano let his gaze wander around the room, and nearly choked when his eyes fell on the man chattering away to the brunette girl in the corner.

He approached cautiously. His iPod was almost blistering in his sweaty hand. "Um…" he struggled to remember how to say 'Excuse me' in German. The brunette and the man both looked up expectantly; their unwavering gazes did nothing for his memory. "Er… entschuldigung?"

"Ja?" the man's eyes were deep brown behind his glasses, with a strange, almost purplish ring around each iris. Romano wondered briefly if he wore coloured contact lenses.

Romano struggled with the words. "I… um… bist sie… I mean, are you Roderich Edelstein?"

The man looked as though he would rather sink backwards into the white-plastered wall than admit to the fact. "Oh. Yes. Yes, I am."

"Right. Um…" Something the man had said earlier struck a chord in Romano's memory and before he knew what he was doing, he had asked "You don't happen to work with Romulus Vargas, do you?"

The man blinked. He seemed startled. "He's my sponsor, why?"

Romano shifted. Truth be told, he had no idea 'why', he had just asked_. Everything seemed to be very spontaneous today,_ he reflected idly.

"Oh!" the exclamation from the brunette girl made them both jump. Romano looked around to find her staring at him with wide eyes. "I know you! You're Feliciano Vargas, aren't you?"

Romano seethed. After years of being constantly mistaken for his brother, Romano would have thought the public had come to recognize him by now. It was one of the reasons he dressed so extravagantly, to distance himself from his brother in terms of looks. "No, I'm his brother. Romano Vargas."

Roderich glanced back at the door they had just come through; tension roiled off his stiff shoulders in waves so palpable Romano was surprised there wasn't visible evidence. "You're family, right?"

Romano nodded. "I'm his son."

The brunette squinted at him. "Really? Surely you're too old!"

Romano felt embarrassed. "I'm eighteen."

Roderich's eyebrow rose. "Really?" The universally-recognized _ding _of an incoming text message hit the air; Roderich fished his phone out of his pocket. He glanced at it before turning to the brunette girl. "That was Gilbert. He's wondering why we haven't met with him for the annual beer festival…"

The brunette said something in a language Romano didn't understand – a curse word, maybe? "I forgot about that. Are you going?"

"You know I don't drink, Erzsébet." Roderich sounded weary.

Romano shifted from one foot to the other, feeling slightly awkward now that the conversation had so abruptly shifted away from him. The musician and his friend hardly seemed to notice he was there. "I'll just go then, shall I?"

No response.

"All right, then." Romano muttered, turned on his heel, and walked back to Feliciano.

"Ah, there you are!" Feliciano flashed his brother a dazzling smile. "I was just about to tell you, look!" he pointed at a leaflet on the receptionist's desk; upon seeing it, Romano's heart soared. "Isn't that the band you like?"

Scarcely able to believe it, Romano snatched up the piece of printed paper and scanned it eagerly. It turned out Messengers of the North were having a concert in Berlin several days from now. Romano's mind ticked. He knew the only way he would be able to afford concert tickets was to either have a windfall or win the lottery, and neither event seemed likely to happen any time soon.

Romano decided to do away with pride and ask his brother. He knew Feliciano must have millions stored away. As well as being the curator of a chain of several of the wealthiest German art galleries, Feliciano Vargas was also a miser on par with Scrooge McDuck, not that Romano would normally admit to reading American comics.

"Could you take me?" he begged.

Feliciano's eyes turned frigid; his smile grew contrived, plastic. No doubt he was picturing the type of people who generally went to metal concerts, then calculating exactly what sort of effect it would have on his reputation if he was caught there. "Of course not. Find your own way of getting there."

Romano's teeth gritted as he glared down at the leaflet.

Across the room, Roderich Edelstein's phone rang, and he answered it.

"Oh, hi, Timo…"

* * *

Notes:

The character's names are seriously confusing me right about now :P Roderich, Romulus, Romano... Incidentally, just how did I go with characterizing Romano? :P I seem to have made him... well, I don't know exactly, I'll leave it to you to decide.

Reviews and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated.


	8. Trivial Pursuit And Money

**COUNTERCULTURE**

**A SYMPHONIC METAL OPERA**

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

**TRIVIAL PURSUIT AND MONEY**

* * *

Mathias held the card in a furtive palm, and his expression was the secretive grin of a chess master. Everyone on the table seemed to be holding their breath, their concentrations narrowed down to that single focal point.

"Who wrote classic novel on post-apocalyptic humanitarianism, Eternal Winter?" Mathias whispered.

Lukas leant back in his seat, tilting his face back to the ceiling. His brow was furrowed. "Can we confer?"

Matthias fluttered the card at him. "Be my guest."

"He was Russian, I think." Eirikur said before Lukas had a chance to open his mouth, picking at a deep groove cut into the table.

Lukas snapped his fingers dramatically at Mathias. "Ivan Braginsky!"

Mathias flung up his hands. "Yes! Well done!" He moved to add another point to the scoreboard.

Outside in the hallway, the muted sounds of Berwald and Timo arguing in muffled Swedish permeated through the dark-panelled door. Mathias cocked his head as he sorted through the Trivial Pursuit cards, and Eirikur sank further down into his seat.

Lukas rolled his eyes. "They're at it again,"

Eirikur's fingers clenched. "I hate how they're always arguing." The mutter, although quietly aimed at the tabletop, was none the less shared by all the occupants of the table.

"Yeah, well, Berwald can be a real bastard sometimes," Mathias raked a hand through his hair and avoided his gaze, the Trivial Pursuit cards apparently abandoned.

Lukas leant forward, interested. "You lived with him for a while, didn't you?"

Mathias let one shoulder rise and drop in a shrug. "Yeah. It was..." He screwed his face up in a grimace, "... interesting, to say the least."

"I'm glad I was in Iceland," a dreamy expression crossed Eirikur's face and hung there like a cloud.

"You drove me sick with worry," Lukas chided him gently, ruffling his blonde hair with his fingers. "Why did you do it, anyway?"

Eirikur's opaque eyes blinked serenely. "It sounded interesting."

Mathias chuckled unexpectedly from the other end of the table. "Fair enough."

A loud bang sounded from the hallway; everybody stiffened. Several moments later, Timo came striding into the room with dangerously sparking violet eyes and a black-lipped grimace to match. Eirikur slid himself out of the way as the vocalist dragged up a chair and shoved himself into it, the slender hickory looking slightly laughable against his dark clothes and muscular build.

"Everything alright?" Lukas ventured after Timo did not speak. Timo's nails were tangled firmly in his hair as he glared ahead.

Mathias raised his head to stare at the now ajar door. "What was that noise?"

"Berwald just left," Timo muttered.

"What happened?" Eirikur asked timidly.

Timo's teeth gritted. "His lordship Oxenstierna doesn't want to go to the Berlin concert." His tone dripped contempt.

An exasperated groan ran around the table. Mathias rolled his eyes. "Oh for God's sake."

"Did he say why?" Lukas asked.

"God knows." Timo looked irritated. He removed his hands from his hair to look around at his assembled bandmates, a flash of worry entering his violet eyes. "You guys still want to play at the Berlin concert, right?"

"Are you kidding me?" Matthias yelped, extending his arms for suitable dramatic flourish – Eirikur ducked. "It's Berlin! We've been wanting to do a gig here for ages!"

Lukas reached across the table and slid the Trivial Pursuit cards out from under Mathias's nose, fanning them out in a neat line – it was not for nothing he had been a croupier in a month-long Vegas holiday in his teens. "So, I guess Berwald will just have to go along with it?" he ventured after Timo made no reply.

Timo's expression could have rivalled a thundercloud. "I'm not making any exceptions for his lordship." His tone was dripping sarcasm.

"His lordship," Mathias snickered, scooping up the cards again. "You're a riot, Timo."

Timo flung up his hands. "Well, I swear, he acts like one." Frustration had set his violet eyes glinting again. "He never shows the slightest interest in the band… why is he even here, anyway?"

Lukas flinched. "Timo, that's a bit harsh…"

Timo tilted his chair back, his face belligerent. "Well, it's the truth."

Mathias coughed awkwardly. "Err… well, he may be here because I was the one who talked him into it…"

Timo stared at him. "So, he's only here because of you?"

Lukas blinked at the rangy lead guitarist. "You two don't have something going on, do you?"

"Where would the world be without trees?" Eirikur spoke up suddenly. Lukas didn't know it was an intentional attempt at rescuing an increasingly uncomfortable-looking Mathias or simply a characteristically odd comment – he was more inclined to think the latter.

Mathias stared at the drummer. "Um…"

Timo ran a hand through his hair. "Doesn't matter. Guys…" the tension pulling his shoulders into ruler-straight lines was almost palpable. "Should we… you know, try and…"

"Get rid of him, you mean?" Lukas's voice sounded oddly harsh, considering the circumstances. Eirikur gave a muffled yelp.

Timo raised his head. His expression looked almost regretful. "I've tried to figure out another way, but Berwald just doesn't seem the slightest bit interested in the band at all."

"Yeah." Mathias frowned, looking up at the ceiling as though the answer was hidden somewhere there. "Yeah, I've always felt that too."

"So…" Lukas almost hated to say it aloud. "So, after the Berlin concert… do we tell him?"

"Yeah." Timo's voice sounded like ice splintering. "Then we tell him."

Timo rested his chin on his hands, violet eyes grazing the scarred tabletop. Mathias tilted his chair back to stare up at the ceiling, blinking quickly. Lukas sighed, and Eirikur picked at a groove in the table.

And Berwald stood outside the door, heart beating very fast.

-  
"So, what do you reckon?" Romano leant against the counter and fixed him with an indolent eye.

"Oh, darling," Feliks sighed, closing the till with a resounding crash. A patron sitting at a nearby table glared. "I don't know if I can. I'm not exactly rich," he gestured at himself, and Romano tried hard not to let his eyes be drawn to his clothes. It was the strangest case of viewer gender confusion he had ever seen; Feliks looked hot dressed as a girl.

Purple nails trailed under his chin and yanked his head firmly up. "Darling, my eyes are up here." The Pole sounded amused.

Romano felt his face redden. "Sorry, I just..."

"Don't worry about it," Feliks said genially, bestowing a kiss on the top of his head; the patron sitting alone at table 14 nearly choked.

Romano wriggled away. "Why can't you take me?"

Feliks flung up his hands. "Romano, just look at me. If I had uncountable riches, I would, but I don't." Seeing Romano's expression, his shoulders slumped. He ruffled his hair with thin fingers, evidently vying for consolation. "I'm sorry."

Romano inhaled. "That's okay. I just really want to go to this concert…"

"Ohh, darling…" Feliks managed to reach over the counter and envelop him in a hug, and Romano tried not to choke on what smelt uncannily like grapefruit perfume. "I'm sorry. I tell you what." He released him and took a few steps back, green eyes serious. "I have a friend who's probably got some spare cash lying around, how about I call him up and ask him to lend you some?"

Romano wrinkled his nose, sceptical in spite of himself. "What, is he a billionaire or something?"

Feliks chuckled. "Children's book author and independent artist. You wouldn't believe how much jobs like that actually pay." He looked suitably amazed.

Romano glanced pointedly at him. "So, why don't you do it, then?"

Feliks nearly choked. "Are you kidding me? I'm a model, darling, I'm a model, didn't you hear? Hero magazine is going to feature me in their article next month! I'm going for a photoshoot next week!" Excitement brimmed from his every pore.

"Wow! That's great, Feliks." Truthfully, Romano couldn't imagine his flamboyant partner splashed over the pages of every issue of Hero magazine from here to the United States – the thought made him feel slightly protective. "Hey, I've got to go. Could you get your friend to call me sometime?"

Feliks grinned at him. "Come here." Planting a brief kiss on his forehead, he waved him away. "Now, get thee away, Satan! Thou be minest truest tempter." He frowned, and added uncertainly "-eth."

Romano was still laughing by the time he had walked out of Cones brightly-painted door and onto the street. The bus, arriving with all the typical German precision at exactly 4:30, creaked to a stop in front of him. Pointedly ignoring the bus driver eyeing his distressed black jeans and studded shirt, Romano shuffled toward the back of the bus. The only other passenger on the bus was a middle-aged man in a neatly pressed suit who nodded politely to him as he passed.

"Guten tag,"

"Guten tag," Romano replied, and clomped up the aisle to the empty back seats, throwing himself down onto the plastic seat. The bus's halogen lights flung the scratches and fingerprints on the glass's surface into high relief. Idly, he tucked a hand into his pocket and traced the cracks running over the back of his cell phone. He had a message.

**I've talked to my friend. He wants to meet you. Lithuanian guy, name of Tolys Laurinaitis, wants to meet you tomorrow at ten at the Jade Dragon. Can you make it? xxx Feliks**

Feeling considerably more cheered at the prospect of imminent money floating his way (although still slightly bewildered as to why an evidently rich man would want to lend money for something like tickets to a rock concert), Romano typed back.

**Sure, can you send me directions? Also, why is he lending me money, anyway? **

**Because I threatened to put Polish Law him if he didn't :P Just kidding, he's a fan of rock music as well, he likes trying out different bands (calls himself a 'music connoisseur'). **

**Ok :D **

The use of the emoticon surprised him – Romano didn't normally use them. Then, on an impulse:

**Love you**

**Ha! Knew you'd see it my way :) xx **

Romano laughed.

**ooOOoo**

To be continued…

* * *

Notes:

I'm alive! :D :D

So, so sorry about the wait, readers – I had exams, then I had writer's block, then I got started on several other fics, and then I had writer's block again, and then any interest I had in this fic went on strike, and then…

*is promptly beat around the head with a rusted kettle*

*makes tea* Ahem, so, yes. Here's the chapter. Long overdue, eh?

On another note, South Italy x Poland? o.O How did _that_ happen? I'm sorry, MisstiqueRose.

**Reviews and constructive criticisms are greatly appreciated.**


	9. AUTHOR'S NOTE & APOLOGIES

**Notice**:

To all those readers who may have been offended by the apparent 'slurs' in this fic, understand that they were completely unintentional, and mainly due to a lack of knowledge about the subject matter. For that, I am sorry – being a straight, cisgendered female, I should have researched more on the subject beforehand before throwing around terms I didn't really know the implications of ('transvestite' etc.). I apologize profusely for any unintended offensiveness, and have changed the terms of concern to less offensive ones (I hope!) immediately.

Also, to all those who disagree with various portrayals of characters in this fic, understand that this fic is an **AU** – an alternate universe – therefore, some characterizations of certain characters have been changed to be different from their canon portrayals. This is surely what I would have thought any reader would expect from an AU fic, but I apologize if I didn't make that clear from the start.

(Also, 'Nordics' is essentially a term encompassing all of the northern European countries – therefore, all of Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Finland and **sometimes**, although not included in this fic, even Siberia)

Once again, I am so sorry for any unintended offensiveness, and have rectified the situation immediately.

Inspirationally Red


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